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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29874159">perilous, behind the stars</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/fais_do_do/pseuds/fais_do_do'>fais_do_do</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Prospect (2018)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Ableist Language, Cee is Clever, Chronic Illness, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Ezra is a good whatever he is, Ezra is intelligent, Fluff and Angst, Foreign Language, Found Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Philosophy, Retrospective Analyses of a Father-Daughter Relationship, Space capitalism, Vulgar Language, internalized ableism, space travel</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-04-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-04-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-16 02:15:54</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>26,737</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29874159</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/fais_do_do/pseuds/fais_do_do</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>And then.</p><p>Or, Cee and Ezra come to know the rock jumper as home, settle into their roles as partners, and forge a path towards what is to come. </p><p>Though, they couldn’t have known what was to come.</p><p>They couldn’t have known.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Cee &amp; Ezra (Prospect 2018)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>39</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>60</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. prologue</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This work follows another: we violent ones remain a little longer. You do not have to read it but it would likely enrich the experience, if not clear some confusion that may follow. Should you wish to start there: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28372596</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The ship, unseen by any external eyes, unnoticed by the expanse of the Black, was drifting badly.</p><p>The occupants <em>knew</em> this, of course; they were doing their best to <em>correct </em>it, despite their diminishing patience.</p><p>They were in the third-chrono-hour of the repair attempt, severely delayed.</p><p>“We’re still drifting.” The girl at the console said, right hand locked in a stubborn battle with the joystick as it bucked insolent under her touch. Her left held down the buttons choking the thrusters that were stubbornly trying to spin them further off course.</p><p>“I know it.” Her companion’s muffled voice drifted up from below the console, dripping with frustration.</p><p>A spark - the angry fizzle of another failed breaker, another melted relay.</p><p>“Shit.” He ground out in a frustrated growl over the hurt of it, over the seemingly unending failure of the control-board. He coughed over the brief stream of smoke. “Flip the coupler, birdie.”</p><p>“I’ve only got two hands, Ezra.” She said with a small grin as she looked up at the coupler, well above her head; she couldn’t hold the stick, choke the thruster, <em>and</em> flip the coupler.</p><p>“I didn’t take you as one given to bragging,” Ezra said, voice laced with played incredulity over the comment.</p><p>A grunt, the clang of a tool scraping metal.</p><p>“Let the thrusters go a tic.”</p><p>She did as he requested, releasing the thrusters and standing, hand still on joystick, to flip the coupler. <em>Another</em>sharp <em>snap</em>, another circuit fried, another plume of smoke, all followed by a disorienting jerk of the ship as thrusters over-activated.</p><p>The ship groaned as it tried to fling the craft what was, for them in their state of false gravity, upwards, and into the endless space around them. If the choke failed, they’d be liable to drift <em>forever</em> on the single force of that dysfunctional thrust; they’d never be able to create any form of <em>drag.</em></p><p>“Cee, girl, back thrusters, choke it –“ He shouted in a rushed breath.</p><p>It was with luck that the jerk, the sudden acceleration, had forced her back into the seat, had her hands landing over the thruster choke naturally.</p><p>She pressed both buttons, the back thrust, the choke, and was rewarded; the ship shuddered as it slowed.</p><p>Though, not pleasantly so.</p><p>Cee had to brace herself with both hands – both of which were still occupied – gripping the panel, only <em>just</em>avoiding hitting her head on the <em>ceiling</em> of the ship.</p><p>Ezra had less to brace with, against, and she could hear the solid <em>thunk</em> of some fleshy body part hitting hard, unmoving structure.</p><p>Cee looked down, sympathy wincing as he let out a small, pained groan. She stared at his legs, the only thing she could see, tucked as he was under the console.</p><p>She would have been better suited to the job. Once the panel had been removed, it had revealed a small space, one he’d been forced to cram shoulders through, one <em>she</em> would have slid into with ease.</p><p>Ezra, however, couldn’t manage the panel one-handed. So, he’d been forced into the indignity of stuffing his frame inside the ship’s sharp, cramped interior.</p><p>“That was <em>your</em> idea.” Cee said in the silence that stretched, her nose scrunching over the scent of burning.</p><p>Ezra shifted, <em>accidentally</em> nudged his companion in the leg, a light thing, in his readjustments.</p><p>“Hand over the wire-stripper –“ He didn’t respond to the jab; he was annoyed, she knew, over the seemingly constant need to make these small repairs.</p><p>Hardly any time had passed since the last one – an aggravating thing, the brief failure of the environmental heat drive, a thing that could have turned dangerous - and with them two ship cycles from their destination, they couldn’t afford another.</p><p>She looked around, found what he needed, handed it to him; his hand was poking out from under the panel, palm open and expectant. It retreated like an animal to a den the moment she laid the tool in his palm; he cursed as there was another <em>snap.</em></p><p>The joystick rattled, back and forth, under Cee’s hand.</p><p>“What about the relay converter?” She asked; the rattle was familiar, something she’d felt once before when taking over the controls of a pod – one that had been in <em>worse</em> shape than the one abandoned in the Green - for her father.</p><p>There was a pause.</p><p>“Good idea, birdie, usually works in a bind. Can you reach it? We can forego the stick for now.” His voice drifted up and she looked to her left; it was on Ezra’s side.</p><p>They <em>could</em> forgo it, but if the relay didn’t catch, or if she slipped from the choke, they would be sent into a tumble; it didn’t matter much, in the Black, as there was a deep lacking for things to hit, but it would toss them around something fierce.</p><p>Cee tested her reach; it would be a stretch, literally.</p><p>This would be a lot easier with four hands arms between them; if not lacking, Ezra would have been able to hold his tool <em>and</em> the joystick, albeit from a very awkward position.</p><p>“I can reach it.” She said firm, confident.</p><p>“Good.” The was a <em>clank</em> as Ezra dropped the write-stripper, and a metallic <em>scratch</em> as he scraped the floor picking up the driver.</p><p>He was a lot clumsier than he’d once been; he tossed things, dropped them, still not used to being left-handed. It would be a while before his movements were fluid, even longer before they could be called any derivative of <em>graceful</em>.</p><p>“I’ll initiate the arc after you hit the relay. Keep your other hand on the choke, steady. Engage the relay and release when I say. Got it?”</p><p>“Got it.” She responded easily; over the past few ship-weeks they’d learned to work together, found themselves growing that very important skill of anticipating the other’s needs. They’d developed their own easy call and response.</p><p>“Alright, on three, your count.” Ezra said, waiting.</p><p>“On three. Letting go of the throttle.” She responded. It was especially important they communicate when they couldn’t see each other, couldn’t see what the other was doing.</p><p>She let go, as promised, and the ship wobbled, shuddered. Not enough to be problematic but enough to feel every bit the harbinger should they make a misstep.</p><p>She stretched her arm out; it truly was a close thing, her fingers only just grazing the button enough to press it.</p><p>“One, two, three.” Cee pushed the button on the final word.</p><p>Ezra must have done as promised, had clamped the array and initiated the arc at the precise moment, for the ship responded. The panel flickered and rebooted with a droning hum; lights flickered as they turned off, came back online, all in an instant.</p><p>There was a <em>tick, tick, tick, clunk</em> and the ship stabilized, joystick no longer wobbling, trajectory reappearing on the display. Even with a glance Cee could see they were badly off course, but it was fixable; the system was already working to recalculate, to reorient.</p><p>The cabin filled with the whooshing sound of external thrusters, the computer’s effort to push them back on course.</p><p>“It worked.” She said, voice projecting downwards lest he should be deafened by the mechanical din.</p><p>Ezra stayed below for a moment longer; she could see by his small movements that he was still working. Then, another <em>clunk</em>. The two tools slid harshly out from under the panel, preceding his own exit.</p><p>“There. It’s been a good and long while since this wiring has seen a skilled hand - ” She leaned out of his way as he, with effort, pushed himself from under the console, torso materializing.</p><p>His voice was still muffled, but that didn’t stop him.</p><p>“ – but, I do believe that will hold for the time being –“</p><p>He finally emerged, hand grasping the bottom of her chair. He looked up at her, hair ruffled and absurd looking. It stood up every which way.</p><p>There was a small red mark on the left side of his forehead, the result of its sudden collision with the internals of the panel’s underside. There were streaks of soot-flash from the minor failures in the wiring on his face, his hand.</p><p>“ - or, at least until we make station orbit.”</p><p>“We’re behind.” Cee said with only the slightest hint of anxiety; she wasn’t used to being part of the intimate intricacies of planning, of communicating with contacts offering gainful employ.</p><p>Surely their tardiness would be deemed unacceptable.</p><p>“Wasn’t a thing to be helped, birdie.” Ezra said as he wiped his greased hand on his pants, pulled himself up using the side of her chair. It wobbled slightly under his movements.</p><p>He reached over her head, flicked a couple of buttons; she looked up, watched, still learning the intricacies of this ship. It was with great luck, she’d realized after their first week returned to the Black, that Ezra knew this class of craft.</p><p>It was in common use amongst those in unsavory trades. They were easy to upgrade, or downgrade, given one’s needs and circumstances. They were unspecialized, but heavy – sturdy enough to manage nearly any job – and ran off simple programming easy to manipulate.</p><p>Its walls were thick; it could handle the punch of stray materials, stray debris. She heard the occasional rock-splatter off their hull, had learned to trust the strength of the craft, Her heart no longer raced when she heard it.</p><p>The negatives, however, were equally formidable.</p><p>It took a sturdy knowledge to maintain it, especially if by hand. It took grit and strength to manipulate its parts without equipment. A single panel weighed 15 V, which was - in comparison to the impossibly light weight of the dura-plat of finer ships – remarkably hefty.</p><p>Its insulation was of the lowest grade, promising random currents of heat and cold that were hard to trace.</p><p>Its portholes were small, offering only glimpses. The widest, most extensive view was that which was located in the sleeping quarters. A large opening on the ‘ceiling’ that, with the right subject before them, revealed countless splendors.</p><p>Cee was coming to know it as home.</p><p>She had first called it that – <em>home</em> - in her mind. It had been a natural thing. She’d awoken with a start from an unremembered night terror, chest heaving and sheets uncomfortably cloying.</p><p>In the first moments of returning lucidity, she had, in her quest to self-soothe, told herself: <em>I’m fine. I’m home.</em></p><p>Ezra hadn’t stirred throughout her ordeal; he had remained asleep on his back, face slack and calm, breathing steady.</p><p><em>We’re fine</em>. She had thought again over a long inhale, a longer exhale. <em>I’m home.</em></p><p>She’d never had anything like that, like <em>this</em>: a good and proper home. Even if it were a bit of a mess, a bit broken-down.</p><p>She’d never had the same bed, the same cloths. She’d never been able to look forward to the comforts of a space made familiar by living in it, had never known the joy of sprawling with an aching body into one’s permanent sleep-space.</p><p><em>Home is where you make it, Cee</em>, her father had always said, as though it were sage advice. She’d never felt it to be so. It always sat stale in the air after he said it, as though he didn’t believe it much himself.</p><p>“Oi, Cee – “ Ezra’s voice interrupted her mental meanderings; she <em>did</em> get lost in it sometimes, thinking and remembering.</p><p>She looked to him; he was still standing right beside her, hand punching coordinates into the nav-pad. He wasn’t looking at her, but she knew he was paying attention. He knew her mind wandered, knew that some things needed repeating.</p><p>“Run the secondaries, please, make sure they’re nice and tight –“ Ezra said giving her a brief glance; he was asking her to check his work. Before him, she’d never been asked such a thing, to put second hand to a task considered important.</p><p>“ – this last bit is making an earnest attempt at bucking the system and I’m not sure our girl is up for the assault.” He pointed at the streaming line of data on the nav-pad; it was a navigational preset, a long line of code meant to send them off in the right direction.</p><p>It <em>was</em> doing the job, as evidenced by their now resolved predicament, but it was liable to interfere with the complicated trappings of the motherboard. It would be hard to distinguish whether the problem was something to do with their hardware, the motherboard, or if it were an unfortunate bug.</p><p>“Got it.” She said as she stared down at the nav-pad, pulling up their trajectory. She wondered if this glitch is what had landed the mercenaries – and what <em>luck</em> – right on top of the Queen’s Lair.</p><p>“Good.” He patted her shoulder as he left her side, called over his shoulder:</p><p>“I’ll check the cargo and then fix us something hearty to eat.”</p><p>Cee was so immersed, so intent on offering a careful, second eye, that she hadn’t heard him.</p>
<hr/><p>Ezra crossed the short expanse of the ship and made his way to the sleeping quarters. It held the best vantage point for a quick visualization of that which was secured to the cargo bracers, even if the angle was slightly awkward.</p><p>He stepped up, onto his bunk, not caring that he was stepping on his sleeping cloths with dirty boots and reached up to brace himself.</p><p>He craned his neck, searching, his mind still turning frustrated cogs over the craft’s state of disrepair.</p><p>No.</p><p>It wasn’t the <em>craft</em> that had him lost in frustrated thoughts.</p><p>He had spent time in crafts like this. He’d dealt with far worse, far more challenging beasts of engineering. They required constant maintenance and any decent being making a way in the Black understood that; understood that only Centralian crafts boasted long, uninterrupted periods of working, that Floaters and Fringelings were left the flotsam and jetsam of what could be produced.</p><p>It was his <em>inability</em> to repair it.</p><p>That was it, the plain and simple of it: it was something he just could <em>not</em> do alone.</p><p>He could not pull at the craft’s wiring <em>and</em> strip them delicately, carefully. He could not twist the frayed, exposed ends together in a bind.</p><p>He could not manage the delicate, two-handed work of manipulating the dual yokes of a delicate machine; most heavy machinery was out, though the craft was, <em>by Kevva’s kindness</em>, steered by a singular joystick.</p><p>He could not hold a loose panel in place while setting to the easy work of screwing it into a steady position; he couldn’t lift a panel without aid, the size of it too awkward, too large for a singular grasping hold.</p><p>Every task was something to be mulled over, ad nauseum, his mind forced into constant decision making over <em>this</em> or <em>that.</em></p><p>Hold <em>this</em> or <em>that</em>. Push <em>this </em>button or <em>that </em>one. Strip <em>this</em> wire <em>or</em> pull <em>that</em> one from its casing.</p><p>It was never both. He was a man reduced to singular ability; a man who <em>could not</em>, in any fashion, multitask in the same manner as a being two-handed.</p><p>He’d known it in the Green, had been unable to prospect for Aurelac successfully. He’d known it before they’d landed on Central, he’d been unable to brace himself, to help himself with any ease as he’d grown sicker. He’d known it on Central, had been forced to listen to the clinical reality over and over.</p><p>And now, even in these small moments, he knew it. He came to learn it each cycle, in new, meaningful ways.</p><p>If he were to dig deeper, down into those recesses that made a man vulnerable and mad with the knowing of it, he would find <em>fear.</em> Fear over the reality that he could not do many a thing alone; not anymore.</p><p>If it weren’t for Cee’s presence – and he had pondered this many, many times, often in moments in which he should be sleeping – he would not be able to manage the craft.</p><p>But, even with her help, he wasn’t sure it was enough.</p><p>The repair – this most recent one – had taken twice as long as it should have and had compromised the craft. It wasn’t built for fast, sudden micro-movements and course alterations. It wasn’t built to jerk, violently, from its trajectory.</p><p>Before, it would have been quick, fluent work.</p><p>Pulling himself up a bit, a decent view: Ezra sighed in relief</p><p>He could just <em>barely</em> make out the edges of the external cargo container. It didn’t matter, he didn’t need to see it all; it sufficed to know it was still lashed to the ship.</p><p>It was his second check that cycle. The ship had bucked and kicked enough to make him question the one-armed work he’d put into it; it had been hard to mount, even with the Centralian foreman’s help.</p><p>He’d been sure, more than once, that the thing had torn from its bracers, that the rivets had come undone or that a patch of poor welding had allowed a lamellar tear to form.</p><p>He’d been sure, more than once, that what he’d built and formed by his own hand was inadequate.</p><p>Ezra spent a lot of time doing that as of late: <em>doubting.</em></p><p>It wasn’t a thing he was used to.</p><p>He wasn’t used to doubting the work he’d put into a project. Doubting the sturdiness of the things he’d built, wired. Doubting the rigor of his efforts.</p><p>It was disconcerting.</p><p>Doubt had never been one of the things he would have identified as part of himself, as part of his efforts in meaning making; doubt had neither a place in the Black, nor a home in the hearts of its occupants.</p><p>Worse than his unfamiliarity with it was his <em>unawareness</em> of its presence, its rising. It presented itself in small moments, its shape unrecognizable and faceless until he caught himself in moments just as this, worried. Only then would it sharpen into something knowable.</p><p>It made him compulsive in ways he’d never been before.</p><p>He spent more time on small projects. He double – triple - checked his final products. He ran himself through long, exhausting internal dialogues; an attempt to apply logic when confidence was lacking.     </p><p>It could have been a thing called careful.</p><p>It could have been a thing admired as intention.</p><p>But, Ezra was not one to delude himself.</p><p>He knew well that it was a thing of control, that he was overcompensating for a physical loss – a handicap – and all the mental detritus that came with it.</p><p>Ezra stepped down from the bunk, boots landing heavy. He glanced at Cee’s side of things; her bed-cloths were crumpled and messy, looking, for all the Black, like a teenager’s space. Though, he knew that wasn’t quite fair. They’d been woken from sleep by the computer’s navigational alarm and she had sprung from her cot as though she hadn’t been sleeping at all.</p><p>Her notebook was on the floor, knocked from its place under her pillow in her flight from slumber.</p><p>Ezra reached down, took in its ragged appearance; it had flopped open in its tumble, words bare and readable. He closed it, unwilling to glance her personal thoughts, stories.</p><p>He also knew that <em>it – the doubt -</em> was a thing of worry, for – unbelievably, impossibly - it wasn’t just <em>him</em>anymore.</p><p>It was him and <em>Cee.</em> He’d never imagined such a thing; not for himself. The decisions he made <em>mattered</em> now. And, it wasn’t that they hadn’t before – though there had been cycles, weeks, <em>months</em>, where he’d wondered over the quality of the decisions he’d made – it was that, now, the consequences seemed more deeply imbedded in reality.</p><p>It was easy to imagine all those nebulous possibilities when it was just him:</p><p>Months spent low and hungry.</p><p>Weeks spent running from, toward bad deals and even worse company.</p><p>Cycles spent sick and tired.</p><p>He’d never much worried, cared, before. He was a staunch believer in recognizing one’s part in the sowing of a bad thing, intentional or not. He was no stranger to conflicts and discussions turned bloodied, his or otherwise, and if acts of vengeance called to him on a whim, he’d answer it.</p><p>He lived a brand of life that could seldom afford to wilt under worry for what was natural to it: a violent one.</p><p>Ezra had always imagined it to be a terminal thing, a state of being that just <em>was</em> and could not be altered.</p><p>Until her.</p><p>Cee.</p><p>Those things, those natural things – vengeance, violence, suffering, vice – seemed unbearable, now, when considered in the context of her life. She’d be annoyed by it, his desire to alter their path all for the fear of it, but she couldn’t know.</p><p>She couldn’t know how ugly a being could become. How all of <em>it</em> could turn her passions to dust. How she wouldn’t know herself, one day, just like that.</p><p>How the same thing that turned a person resilient and fighting for life was the same thing that, in the worst turns, had them accepting a premature end.</p><p>He cared <em>too</em> much about this girl. Not too much in the way of excess, in the way of overflowing. But, rather, the kind that softened the edges of the things he believed important to his own survival.</p><p>It was odd to think, after a long life spent in a terminal decline of character, that a child could change that. That this girl could have an impact; what should have been naught but a scratch to his person had turned into an irreparable puncture, an impalement.</p><p>He rubbed his thumb over the cover of the notebook – beaten, likely nearly at its end – and placed it back onto her cot.</p><p>He would do everything, <em>anything</em> to secure her safety. Her <em>happiness.</em></p><p>Quick, unwanted and terrible: d<em>oubt.</em></p><p>He would, but <em>could</em> he?</p>
<hr/><p>Cee drained her bowl of Thalino broth with vigor.</p><p>She’d been <em>starving</em>, though she hadn’t much realized it until Ezra had begun reforming it. The scent – light by any being’s standards and not particularly enticing – had drawn her from her work.</p><p>She had looked over her shoulder to see Ezra preparing a meal for them: poorly cut Salqui fruit – hard, one-handed, to wrangle - and two steaming bowls of broth.</p><p>It was with luck that she’d been finished with her task, had only been giving a final look; she terminated the sequence and joined him.</p><p>Cee set the bowl down before reaching for the drinking vessel.</p><p>She couldn’t help the tiny lift of her lips whenever she used it; a spark of pride for a small, harmless crime. It bore the name of their pilfered home – Central Medical Center – in a bourgeoisie script.</p><p>She knew Ezra found it equally amusing. They had other drinking cups, but he always seemed to choose these two when they sat down for a meal.</p><p>‘How’s it holding?” Ezra asked as he popped a chunk of fruit into his mouth. They were almost out of the delicious Salqui and Cee wished that at least <em>one</em> of them had been able to exercise a moniker of self-control; it would be hard to find them again.</p><p>“Good. It was fine.” Cee said wiping her mouth on the back of her hand. There had been nothing to correct or re-program. They would just have to hope that got lucky or that it had been a one-time occurrence.</p><p>“What do you think, Cee. Got any thoughts regarding the root of it?” She wasn’t sure she would ever get used to it, his genuine interested in her opinions. She’d never thought much of then, herself.  </p><p>Cee looked up at the ceiling for a moment, thinking. She <em>wanted</em> to have an answer for him, wanted to prove herself skilled, but she honestly didn’t know.</p><p>“I don’t know. It seems fine, now. Maybe it <em>is</em> just a glitch.” She was hopeful that was the end of it. The last thing they needed was more repairs, more technical failures.</p><p>“An exceedingly bad run of luck, if that’s true.” He shook his head before reaching forward to take a sip of water; he looked like he had more to say, so Cee waited. He put the cup down, spun it in his hand for a moment, gave it a small grin before returning to the subject at hand.</p><p>“Been around all manner of craft … never seen a nav-system kick like that.” He said looking terribly thoughtful.</p><p>It reminded her of the kind of talk of which she was always left on the fringes, unallowed to participate. It had always been something: her age, her sex, her lack of knowing the topic well enough to be considered a useful participant.</p><p>Cee didn’t know what to say. She’d gotten better since their meeting, since having been exposed to his ability to maintain near constant dialogue, but sometimes she had nothing to add.</p><p>He didn’t look like he was looking for an answer which was what made it comfortable; he was a good person with whom to find one’s voice.</p><p>“Will it affect the job?” Cee asked; she wondered when she’d feel less anxious about this brand of minutiae, these details. This was their second job, and both had her worrying in small jags over their so-called employers.</p><p>“Shouldn’t. We’ll be late but not enough to lose favor, or points – “ Ezra paused, thinking. He was experienced in this, making means in the Black. She found that, whenever they spoke of these things, that she listened, <em>carefully.</em></p><p>“ - though not for their lack of trying I imagine –“</p><p>Ezra grabbed another piece of fruit, looked unconcerned about it all.</p><p>“ – if it comes to that you leave the talking to me.”</p><p>She would.</p><p>The lesson she had learned in the Green had not been, by any means, a small one. She’d been confident, then, when she’d unintentionally spoken out of turn, and had ended up flat on her back. The mercenaries had responded with threats of real violence, terminal bodily harm, and, despite everything that had happened to her – her father – up to that point, she hadn’t been expecting it.</p><p>She supposed she could count herself – Ezra, too - lucky over the peaceful resolution of their first job. It had been broadcast on channels open for trade, and there had been ample disagreement.</p><p>They’d managed, of course. They’d been paid, in full, as promised, but the amount of grief the employer had given them had been enough to give her a headache that has persisted even after the job – easy as far as they go – had ended.</p><p>Not only that. She still had the blush of a planetary sunburn and they were still finding sand <em>everywhere</em>; Ezra had sworn they’d never return to Saharn, vacation destination or otherwise.</p><p>Perhaps that’s how it always was.</p><p>She had brief, hardly formed memories of her father’s own interactions with employers. Hushed, angry conversations regarding points. Long, ranting tirades over the comms. Anger directed at <em>her</em> when there was no resolution to a disagreement, when points were lost completely.</p><p> Her stomach churned, for a moment, over a thing yet to happen.</p><p>After that first job Ezra had reached out to someone – <em>an old contact, a facilitator, of sorts</em>, he had said – and had arranged a meeting. Ezra had explained that, if they were to continue on this way, they needed a contact, a being that dealt in jobs and employ.</p><p>She’d known this, to an extent; her father had had his own contacts, though she imagined <em>something</em> had happened along the way. Something had happened to have caused their abrupt transition from contract laborers to those accessible for employ by <em>mercenaries - </em>she just hadn’t been aware of it, would never know.</p><p>“After that, how long to the trading post?” She asked, hungry for information. The more she reflected, it seemed, the more questions bubbled to the surface. A part of her – an old, trained thing – was afraid he would, one day, refuse her.</p><p>Ezra answered, easily:</p><p>“Barring any <em>more</em> technical issues, shouldn’t be more than six sidereal cycles.” Which meant, for them, an approximate seven and one half. They tended to keep their cycles shorter than what was maintained on the planets that lay in Central’s belt.</p><p>“And you <em>do</em> know him, the contact?” He’d said as much, but she couldn’t help but want confirmation.</p><p>“I do.” He said it confidently but the curtness of it, the lack of any elaboration, left her feeling as though there was more.</p><p>“You trust him?” Cee tried; it seemed like an important opinion to understand.</p><p>Ezra grinned, shook his head.</p><p>It continuously amazed her; she never would have had this conversation with her father. It would have ended with a tired huff, a command to pack their supplies, or a plea to <em>just</em> <em>trust <strong>me</strong>, Cee.</em></p><p>“Of course not. The man’s an absolute bastard, but so long as we don’t transgress, he’ll honor our agreements and offer another piece of honest work.”</p><p><em>Honest work,</em> Cee thought.</p><p>For a long time, most of her life, she hadn’t known that there was such a spectrum: of honest work and dishonest work. She knew that Ezra had likely engaged, before her, in work that stretched across that spectrum. She imagined she had, as well, though not at all knowing of it.</p><p>She trusted that he did, indeed, know the difference because, outside the obvious, she wasn’t sure she would.</p><p>Ezra had managed to teach her a lot since their departure from Central; how to find decent trade, how to scrutinize an offer, how to read between the lines of what a being said.</p><p>But, she still <em>worried.</em> Worried any job could go the way of that which transpired on the Green.</p><p>She hadn’t known, before, how <em>easy</em> it was for a thing to go wrong. Not the kind of wrong that saw a person uncomfortable or forlorn over an opportunity turned lost.</p><p>No, the kind that saw a father killed and a … - she didn’t know what Ezra was - dying slow and ugly.</p><p>She finished the last of her broth with a small frown, a tinge of worry.</p><p>“Don’t worry <em>too</em> much, Cee,” Ezra said, and not at all unkindly, “we gotta finish this job first. It won’t serve to get too far ahead, though I’ll keep you appraised.”</p><p>She wasn’t sure what it was about her affect, her manner that so badly betrayed her, but he always seemed to know when she was getting ahead of her own thoughts, reasonable as they were.</p><p>Though, she did know. It was their shared space, shared time.</p><p>He was getting very good at reading her.</p><p>And, she was getting practiced at reading him as well.</p><p>She had learned to recognize when he was tired, when the day had worn a little too much on him. Though he’d been recovering well, though the purple smears of fatigue under his eyes had finally faded, he still occasionally looked drained, still caught a wheeze.</p><p>He’d slept a lot, those first weeks working on the rock jumper and the subsequent in the Black. He’d been easily drained. But <em>finally</em> – to Cee’s immense relief – he was what she would call well.</p><p>The true turn around in endurance seemed to have come only recently, in the last ten cycles; he no longer kipped at the command chair, unknowing of it, or slept past her own waking. He no longer paled with moderate exertion. He actually<em> finished</em> meals.</p><p>She watched him as he finished his own broth, caught her gaze.</p><p>He lifted a brow in question, aware of her scrutiny.</p><p>“What.”</p><p>“Nothing.” Cee said, voice lifting as though affronted at the underlying accusation.</p><p>“Hmm.” Ezra narrowed his eyes at her as he lifted his water cup for a sip. He did that a lot – that look - and it always stirred something mischievous in her. It wasn’t a thing she ever experienced with her father, a lightheartedness that was easy to navigate, that came without consequence or had a line she couldn’t see.</p><p>Her gaze flit down to his plate of fruit, a single piece left; she’d already eaten all of hers.</p><p>He paused, cup frozen before his lips.</p><p>“No.” He said, undoubtedly realizing her intentions. Over the weeks she’d proven herself an unrepentant nutrition thief; she knew it both annoyed him and turned his expression fond.</p><p>She also knew that, occupied as his left hand was, he could do nothing about it. Nothing short of throwing the thing on the ground.</p><p>They stared each other down for a short moment, and then she struck.</p><p>It all happened in a messy, ridiculous instant.</p><p>Cee grabbed the last wedge, snatched it away just as Ezra dropped the vessel, its contents splattering both of them as it hit the table and then the floor. He reached but wasn’t fast enough.</p><p>She couldn’t help the genuine laugh that burst forth; she hadn’t expected him to so ardently defend his plate. Her face hurt for how brightly she was smiling. Any anxiety she had been feeling over the impending meeting took flight.</p><p>Ezra was clearly trying <em>not</em> to reward her, was trying to look <em>unimpressed.</em> He wiped water from his face, shook his head as he watched her consider the token of her efforts.</p><p>She popped the fruit into her mouth. It was delicious, worth the splash back of what had been nearly half a cup of water. Water dripped in a slow drain from the table, noisy in the general silence of the ship.</p><p>“You’re cleaning that.” He said over a smile, his expression as warm as she’d anticipated.</p>
<hr/><p>They make orbit without further delay.</p><p>The planet – <em>Ukiuq</em>- was at the edge of Federal reach. It was the final holdout, the final hand of the hungry political creature that was Central, and was treated as such: slow Towlines, slower supply and trade, and infrastructure that seemed <em>just</em> on the edge of crumbling.</p><p>It was a stark thing, it’s black and white surface lending an incredible contrast with the deep space that surrounded it. Slices of shocking, ice-blue ran along its surface like veins; water.</p><p>It was also <em>cold</em>, Ezra knew. He would relish in the artificial warmth of the rock jumper while he could. Just <em>looking</em> at it gave him chills.</p><p>
  <em>… love me, love me, get me, hold me tight, now I’m crying in a storm …</em>
</p><p>Ezra gave Cee a small smile as she sang along, attention held by the impressive sight of the planet before them.</p><p>Music played through the speakers as they sat together, preparing to initiate the landing sequence. They hadn’t managed to fix it, the internal communication array, until they had breached the black.</p><p>It had been Cee’s finest passion project – painting the poor craft notwithstanding – and Ezra had to admit that she did indeed possess talent when it came to programming.</p><p>He was grateful for it, despite the sometimes-ear-piercing jags of static that burst forth for no reason, often when they were sleeping. Despite the fact that he had been forced into listening to the music the mercenaries had installed while she tried to scrub it from the programming.</p><p>“It looks cold.” She said, her gaze flitting to his own for a moment before returning to her inspection of Ukiuq.</p><p>“It is –“ He said, leaning forward to take a closer look; they were leaned into each other’s space and for a moment they just stared ahead, outward.</p><p>They were gaining, the planet now filling the entirety of their view.</p><p>Ezra sat back, continued.</p><p>“ - though, at this particular station in orbit, and given its current axial precession, it should be summering-season and midday at our coordinates.”</p><p>Cee looked at him, blinked, as if to ask the point.</p><p>“We’ll be able to make do with our heavier kit.”</p><p>She made a small noise of acknowledgment, the hum of a thing found interesting, and sat back as condensation suddenly developed on the viewing portholes.</p><p>The craft turned, reorienting into the correct position for descent, for landing.</p><p>They made atmosphere with an obtrusive <em>whoosh</em>; the craft creaked a bit and Ezra only spared a single, errant thought – <em>hold, by Kevva, hold </em>- to the cargo bracers.</p><p>“Alright, Cee. Square us up.” He said, hand moving smoothly over the landing procedure sequence as she engaged the joystick.</p><p>Landing planetary in ‘free space’ – plots unofficially utilized for settling a craft – was different than docking with a Port or landing on Central. A lot of it was left to the pilot. One had to carefully choose a plot, understand it, assess it.</p><p>In his youth he’d chosen wrong a time or two, had landed on unlevel terrain, or, <em>once, </em>in water. There had been one spectacular time where he’d landed in the pasture of grazing capra goats; worse, he had landed right on top of one of the unfortunate beasts.</p><p>His brother had laughed in that way a sibling does, and then had promptly abandoned him to face the wrath of the farmer, poor bastard.</p><p>Cee didn’t need to know those stories; it would suffice to teach her better than he himself had learned.</p><p>And, she was an easy student. She was naturally quick to learn, to take a lesson. She was brilliant; it was an easy, obvious observation for she <em>shone.</em></p><p>“I think I have it.” She said, her voice low with concentration.</p><p>He didn’t look, trusted that she did, indeed, have it.</p><p>In the beginning she would watch him from her periphery, near buzzing with anxious energy, as he checked her work. He found, quickly, that she made <em>less</em> mistakes under his scrutiny. It was a rapid change, her demeanor at the controls shifting from uncertain to confident in the stretch of mere cycles.</p><p>Ezra could feel her confidence in the ease of her movements, the gentle slouch of her posture.</p><p>He trusted her.</p><p>So, he engaged the initial back-thrusters. He did so just before the light lit red, telling him to do so. They had both come to know this craft very well, despite its faults, and Ezra would not hesitate to admit that it was a comfort.</p><p>“I have it. Two-thousand meters.” Cee said and Ezra felt a surge of <em>pride.</em></p><p>“Alright, birdie, give me the count.” He said it with a smile, though she couldn’t see.</p><p>He was damn proud.</p><p>“Got it.” She said with all the seriousness of a being intent on a job well done.</p><p>Ezra waited, hand over the switch.</p><p>“In three, two, one.”</p><p>“One, and away.” He said as he flicked the switch, releasing the parachute. The craft lurched, caught a bit of wind as they dropped closer to the surface.</p><p>“Corrective thrust.” Ezra said as Cee held tight on the joystick; her mouth was set in a firm line, intention poured into her actions.</p><p>He engaged the thrust, pushing them back onto an even course, fighting the wind. Ezra looked over at the girl behind the helm, watched as she stared into the viewfinder. He knew they were close when she sat up, leaned back, as if to brace.</p><p>He followed, taking her direction, and reached up with his only hand to hold onto the belt-harness; it was hard, bracing oneself single handed, so he’d learned through various fits of turbulence.</p><p>Soon after came the familiar rush of landing thrusts, and then, the landing itself.</p><p>They settled with a surprisingly smooth lurch, If one could call a <em>lurch</em> smooth. It was one of their better landings and, as the craft settled, lowered itself on hydraulics, they traded a look. A pleased, surprised arching of brows, a quiet nod, that said, <em>not bad.</em></p><p>It didn’t need to be voiced, but Ezra felt she deserved the credit.</p><p>“Nicely done, Cee.”</p><p>She smiled, looked away with huff.</p><p><em>Proud</em>, painfully so.</p>
<hr/><p>Her concerns regarding the amenability of their current employ were unwarranted.</p><p>“I wholeheartedly apologize for the delay –“ Ezra had started, ready to ameliorate conflict right from the start. He’d hardly managed those six words when the recipient of the cargo waved a hand, unconcerned with the delay.</p><p>“Would have taken three times as long with Central.” The woman, aged, kind-looking had said as she held up three fingers. Cee knew what she meant; the further flung one found themselves from Central, the longer federally run services took.</p><p>She and Ezra had been the faster option, albeit more expensive.</p><p>The woman, though old, was rather spry. She had been happy to see Cee, had reached up to pat her cheek, even as Cee leaned back, uncertain.</p><p>“So young.” She’d said, before linking arms with her.</p><p>“You can help them.” She gestured at Ezra, then at the people who had arrived to receive the cargo. She didn’t seem to care - or notice – that he was one-armed and Cee could see that Ezra appreciated it, appreciated being considered useful to tasks so physical, even if he’d just been dismissed – excused - by this gentle, old woman.</p><p>“Uh.” Cee uttered, unused to such treatment, such commandeering of her person.</p><p>The woman didn’t seem interested, perturbed, kept walking.</p><p>“I can help, too – “ She said, uncertain as to whether this woman understood her to be the other half of the pair she’d hired, “ – I have to help finish the job.”</p><p>The woman clucked at her, gave her a wide smile.</p><p>“Hungry? I bet you’re hungry. I am Aput.” She asked, said, as though the two thoughts were connected.</p><p>“Cee.” She offered. She wondered if Ezra would consider her lazy if she followed; would think she was skipping out on hard work? It was what her father would have assumed, would have said: <em>pick up the slack, Cee.</em></p><p>Cee looked back at Ezra; he was already assisting with the detachment and unlashing of their cargo. He didn’t seem particularly taken, interested, <em>worried</em>, about her departure.</p><p>She stared, hoping to grab his attention, worried she would turn the moment he looked, wondered why she wasn’t helping.</p><p>No, that wasn’t Ezra.</p><p>Still, it felt wrong walking away from a job, one he was still performing.</p><p>The woman, Aput, poked at her ribs, clucked again.</p><p>“<em>Saluq</em>. Come, eat.”</p><p>Satisfied that it was under control, that they were relatively safe and that this would not deteriorate into something unkind, she allowed herself to be led into the warmth of an inviting building.</p>
<hr/><p>His concerns regarding the questionable patency of the cargo bracer’s hold were unwarranted.</p><p>In fact, the thing had been lashed <em>too</em> well; he realized this as he pulled at a lever, assisted the locals in unstowing the cargo, a job usually left to the foreman. He wasn’t much use as it related to strength, to the ability to assist in maneuvering, but he knew the order of it, the unlashing.</p><p>A cold breeze snuck into the neck of his kit, sent a satisfying chill down his spine.</p><p>It was a decent thing, spending small moments planet-side.</p><p>Though Ezra would have preferred it warmer – his home planet was <em>perfectly</em> temperate, if not on the slightly warm side – it was good to stretch one’s legs, to feel wind at one’s back, to have no real say in the atmospheric conditions.</p><p>Their time on Saharn had left them no time to enjoy such things, even though he’d found the temperature preferable. The job had been mired with disagreement, miscommunication, and, of course, sand – endless sand making its way into places it didn’t belong.</p><p>But, it had been a success and had ensured more cycles of eating well, of fuel in the tank, of fresh water.</p><p>The last three months had been filled with growing pains, certainly, but the time had also afforded them the opportunity to gain a decent stride, to develop habits.</p><p>It had taken many, <em>many</em> cycles to feel <em>well</em> again; Ezra knew he probably could have stood more time recovering, but there had been nothing for it. It hadn’t been an option, neither by design nor desire.</p><p>Though, recover he did, for the most part.</p><p>He still caught an uncomfortable pressure in his chest when exposed to something irritating, still coughed over it. He still struggled with being weak handed, being lopsided in more ways than literal. He still got strange, phantom sensations and pains in his right side, arm; still dreamed in ambidexterity and woke certain he still had <em>it.</em></p><p>In fact, he still struggled, <em>a lot</em>, with learning it, and he imagined he always would. A small, mournful part of him had come to accept this; that every cycle would reveal a new challenge previously unseen and unknown.</p><p>But, it was the fatigue, the retreat of it, that had been the most remarkable improvement.</p><p>He was no longer dragged into sudden sleep, right in the middle of a task or work to be done. He was no longer so leaden limbed at cycle’s end – and, sometimes cycle’s beginning – that the urge to lay cot bound surged strong. He was no longer unsteady on his feet all due to that irritating, persistent weakness in his legs.</p><p>Best, he was no longer a source of concern for Cee.</p><p>She’d hovered, eyed him carefully those earlier cycles. She’d threatened to contact Filipa, once, over a sudden but short-lived appearance of fever. She’d awoken at every coughing jag, bright-eyed, worried.</p><p>Time had afforded him a decent, marked recovery; it had afforded <em>both</em> of them the pleasure.</p><p>He was glad to see her, for the moment, carried off by the small, hunched figure of their employ; she could use some doting. She didn’t need to stand out here, in the escalating weather, watching them dismantle the rigging.</p><p>Ezra scrubbed his hand through his hair; he was absolutely wind whipped. It had kicked up in the final stages of their off-loading, had set off a brief bout of coughing for the bite of its frigidness, and had left him feeling rumpled.</p><p>It made him feel <em>alive</em>, less like the struggling, sick thing he’d been for too long.</p><p>“What is this grit?” A man asked, hands worrying over some errant graininess, as he attached their equipment for transfer.</p><p>Kevva, help him.</p><p>“Sand. No need to concern yourself. An unrelated occupational hazard.” Ezra said, in slight disbelief. <em>How</em>.</p><p>The man shrugged, uninterested.</p><p>Now, with the cargo secured and ferried away by an old looking vehicle, the job was finished; he heaved a sigh of relief over loose ends now tied.</p><p>Ezra waved in acknowledgement of the local’s appreciative mutterings as they parted ways, and turned in the opposite direction, towards the colorful building Cee had been led towards.</p><p>It was a short walk, but the cold wind had him stiff by the time he reached the door.</p><p>They’d have to make way soon, despite the midnight sun – the sun, far off and undoubtedly warming Central right now,  wouldn’t fall below the horizon that cycle – as a snow-wall was clearly gaining on the horizon.</p><p>With a shiver over air turned colder, he grabbed for the handle.</p><p>The warm blast of air that greeted him upon its opening was indescribably appreciated. He spotted her quickly, sat at a cozy looking wooden table; the same old women – Aput - who had requisitioned them sat beside her, nodding her head at some yarn Cee was spinning.</p><p>Ezra approached, gave the elder a polite nod.</p><p>“Ready to head, little bird?” He asked; his ears were just warming, and it would be a sad thing to part with the warmth of the gathering space.</p><p>“Winds kicking and snow is coming on. That makes for no easy launch.” He said, shoulders relaxing into the warmth.</p><p>Cee looked up at him with a small, shy smile.</p><p>“There’s going to be music tonight.” She said, simply, and Ezra knew a request when he heard one. He also knew she was fond of music, all kinds and genre, that it was a deep temptation.</p><p>“Is there?” He asked, glancing at Aput; her expression didn’t change, remained formed of a pleasantness hard to find in the Black.</p><p>Ezra didn’t need too much time to think on it. He’d told her, once, that they had to take the good cards when the landed. Though a small thing, this seemed a good one, especially for her.</p><p>The job had proven replete of challenge and conflict – save for the delay that was unrelated to the job itself – and Cee, she looked terribly relieved, <em>relaxed.</em></p><p>Knowing this may be a rare respite for them, knowing the next contact was far less savory, he figured it would be a harmless cycle lost, that which was spent lounging and enjoying local company.</p><p>“Can we stay?” She asked, tentatively, as though he might argue.</p><p>He’d be a real bastard to refuse her a normal evening.</p><p>But, he knew, moments like this – the good ones – they <em>softened </em>you.</p><p>It was his only hesitation, even as he faced the mirth shine of her eyes.</p><p>Moments like this were liable to make you forget, make you forget the true face of the Black, the Green. If you didn’t forget you lowered your gaze, became less mindful of what lurked all around you.</p><p>It worried him. They weren’t even <em>really</em> in the Black, yet. They hadn’t been in the true Black for some time.</p><p>They had spent time – sidereal weeks – on Central.</p><p>They had meandered, slowly – as a light craft was wont to do – from the territories of Central.</p><p>Only now were they approaching the Fringe, that poorly understood delineation between Central’s reach and the emptiness beyond it.</p><p>The Black was only <em>just</em> in reach.</p><p>To forget its face, even for a single night, seemed a high risk.</p><p>Cee looked up at him, brow furrowing, imploring.</p><p>He sighed.</p><p>“Of course.” He said, and she beamed.</p><p>What a fool, he was; he’d never say no to her.</p>
<hr/><p>Cee felt the <em>unfamiliar</em> stir of excitement in her belly as the small, local troupe began to play. At first, she’d thought herself anxious, so unused to excited anticipation was she. But, as music floated throughout the large, dim hall, and as she settled into her place at the long table, she realized she was happy.</p><p>Everything under her gaze, all that filled her ears, felt as though it were a thing she loved, that she was fond of. Everything made her smile as the music played.</p><p>Old couples dancing in some complicated native step.</p><p>The smokey fragrance of the cuisine, fresh and fire-cooked.</p><p>The words of the native tongue, impossible for her to form.</p><p>The people, her age, that stopped to talk to her, warmed to her.</p><p>And, of course, Ezra.</p><p>He was sat across from her, eyes crinkled in a smile, brows lifted in amusement as Aput pushed a small vessel into his hand, patted his shoulder.</p><p>“Drink, <em>ataata</em>.” Her gravelly voice broke through the song; the name she’d been calling him all night was lost on both of them, but she said it fondly, so, Cee imagined, it couldn’t have been a bad thing.</p><p>Cee gave him a small smile as he tried to refuse the shot of imiq. The elder was persistent, was a doter, and was absolutely set on making sure her companion left experienced in their local liquor.</p><p>She had snuck some herself and had felt a rush of elation quickly, too quickly. It lent to her good mood, certainly. Elevate it. It flushed her cheeks, that simple nip.</p><p>Cee felt as though that single swallow had brought out the warmth of the atmosphere, had made it all the more obvious. As though it had melted away the thing that had refused to see it, all for fear of losing it.</p><p>She had read once, in Streamer Girl, a particular passage that had always made her wonder. Clo had experienced some joy, an achievement in her studies, and had wished the moment to stretch on forever.</p><p>The character had lamented for pages the perfection of the moment, her unwillingness to depart from it. She had said, Cee remembered, <em>I wish this could last forever</em>.</p><p>Cee had never understood the sentiment. There had not been a single moment, in memory, that she would have wished to stretch on eternal.</p><p>She would not have wished for the cramp moments spent in pods, bored, to extend themselves.</p><p>She would not have wanted to watch, any longer, her father turn in his cot, taken by half-lucid nightmares.</p><p>She would not have cared to draw out unsatisfying conversations, interactions.</p><p>She would not have implored more time in Central watching Ezra die and then – even then – recover.</p><p>The passage had never made much sense to her and it had distanced her from the characters she so loved. It had been, simply, another thing she would never understand, just like the concepts of unconditional love, and a studious life, and futures of unlimited choice.</p><p>Cee had tried to elaborate upon that scene, once. She had put her pen to paper and had tried to form something around it, if only to understand it better. There was something there, she knew, but she hadn’t the faculties to form it, to develop it.</p><p>She had abandoned the piece rather quickly; she remembered feeling empty as she pulled the page from her notebook, crumpled it.</p><p>Aput laughed, a bright sound.</p><p>When Ezra finally caught her gaze – his expression forming an amused plea for help as the elder began to <em>flirt,</em>hand reaching up to ruffle that blonde spate of hair - she smiled, toothy.</p><p>The music rose and for the first time Cee thought that, maybe, she <em>could</em> understand it.</p><p>Oh, how <em>happy</em> she was.</p>
<hr/><p>Ezra was only <em>slightly</em> hungover the morning of their departure, the drink having proved far more potent than expected. He hadn’t realized it fully, but it had truly been a <em>long</em> time since he’d imbibed; a horrible night in the Green with terrible company, if he recalled correctly.</p><p>He peeled himself from the pallet on the floor – Aput had insisted they stay in the room attached to the community hall – and scrubbed his hand over his face.</p><p>He was too <em>old</em> for this sort of waking.</p><p>Ezra yawned, glanced over at Cee’s own pallet.</p><p>She was laid out on her side; he remembered it being the exact position she had fallen asleep in, arms stretched out slightly, hands limp.</p><p>Her breaths came even, and her face was slack with sleep. The thought struck him as it always did when she was particularly peaceful: that she looked young.</p><p>For the first time in their partnership, Ezra had woken first. He looked out the window and, despite the frost, could see that it was a clear day, windless.</p><p>“Cee –“ He said as he stood, coughed to shake loose the liquor-feeling in his throat. It persisted, though only for a moment; the cold made him all sorts of congested.</p><p>She groaned in protest, looked up at him, bleary-eyed.</p><p>“Come on up, girl. It’s a new cycle, and a good one at that.”</p><p>He grinned as she wrinkled her nose in distaste.</p><p>“Hmm.”</p><p>A knock at the door set them both into a small startle; they weren’t used to intrusions on their space. Not since Central had such a thing happened.</p><p>Aput poked her head inside, looked at them both with the big, unwavering smile.</p><p>“Hungry?” the woman asked uncaring of her intrusion.</p><p>Cee sat up on her elbows, blinked at the woman as if still in sleep, not comprehending.</p><p>“I bet you’re hungry.” She said, nodding, before leaving with no warning.</p><p>This thing, this risk, had been worth it, he decided. Even <em>if</em> it had softened him so to acquiesce to another minor delay.</p><p>It was the hangover, no doubt.</p><p>That woman could probably drink him under the table.</p><p>“How about it, birdie?” Ezra asked, the light of morning filtering in; she'd steal half of his portion, he was sure.</p><p>A <em>minor </em>delay.</p><p>“Yeah.” She answered, pleasantly, as she stretched, basked in the sun’s rays.</p><p>And, true to his assessment, it wouldn’t be a long delay, could barely register as being one at all.</p><p>Not long after pulling themselves together – Cee had been difficult to pry from the warm furs that had been laid out as their sleeping material - they left with little difficulty.</p><p>Little difficulty, yes, but with no small amount of fanfare.</p><p>They were treated to the promised morning meal, all of it fresh and painfully delicious. They were given a small crate of some local summer-berry and, to some small twist of Ezra’s stomach, a firkin of imiq; a kind offer, truly, but the stuff smelled like degreaser.</p><p>Aput handed Cee a small data stick – <em>music, </em>she said, simply – and gave the girl a gentle pat on her cheek before moving on to Ezra.</p><p>“<em>Ataata.</em>” She said as she ruffled his hair; Cee couldn’t help the laugh that burst forth.</p><p>Soon after, on the tails of the kindest farewell they were ever likely to receive, they made it past that invisible demarcation and into the Black.</p>
<hr/><p>Travel to Trading Post IV – <em>the Rim</em>, as it was known, colloquially – was uncomplicated.</p><p>Lightened by their pitstop they bore the cycles spent in travel with ease. Neither Cee nor Ezra rose in discontent when the nav-system kicks, again, and Ezra was only <em>mildly</em> irritated when he found sand in the creases of cloths he hadn’t even worn on Saharn.</p><p>Anxieties settled and doubts were quelled in the glow of a job completed, of points in pocket. The atmosphere was kind, relaxed their posture, sedated the stiffness of their spines.</p><p>They focused on small forms of maintenance and repair, rechecked their stock. Cee made another list, smaller this time. Ezra communicated with the post as they neared, confirming their docking hangar.</p><p>It was all easy, lighthearted fare; the kind that opened the space for equally lighthearted conversation.</p><p>They couldn’t have known what was to come.</p><p>They couldn’t have known.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Part One</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Disagreements, in spades, and an unwelcome surprise.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Since their joining in partnership, Ezra remained ever mindful that Cee was a child.</p><p>For all her grit it was an easy thing to forget and forget it he did on occasion. But, as the trading Post loomed before them, all sharp edges and not at all friendly looking, the knowing of it settled in his chest.</p><p>The sight wouldn’t have so disturbed him before her. It would have been familiar, though, in that way that something expectantly unpleasant was. There may have been a thrill before, the sight of it setting off the anticipation of promise.</p><p>But now it loomed threatening. He had no doubt Cee could hold her own, but it seemed too unsavory a place as they made their approach.</p><p>And.</p><p>Ezra didn’t particularly <em>like</em> the Rim Trading Post.</p><p>Sure, he’d had a decent turn or two, had won a good hand in spontaneous, drunken efforts at gambling, had met with good company for sleeping, but he always – <em>always -</em> found himself looking forward to the departure.</p><p>There had been times in his youth where he had near sprinted to whatever form of transport had borne him there, bad luck and bad company nipping at his heels.</p><p>The memories were sharp, the scars more so.</p><p>But, there was always employ to be found. Employ of all manner and trade; often questionable, sometimes nefarious, but <em>always</em> gainful. <em>Gainful</em> employ. It was his reason for making the decision to return.</p><p>Ezra knew, though free of some of the more devious forms of risk, their current lifestyle would, eventually, leave them limping. A single bad turn of misfortune could put them out: a terminal mechanical failure, a run of dry jobs, unfortunate meetings, illness or injury.</p><p>It hadn’t mattered as much, before, without her. He could live lean and low, didn’t have to scramble for an excuse for his own self neglect, didn’t have to forgive the decisions that landed him in a bind.</p><p>But with Cee.</p><p>The points would come and go, quickly and with no meaningful way to mark the in-between. They were the kind of beings that lived in that vacuous middle-ground of existence, that fine gray space of the empty too-much and the overflowing too-little.</p><p>The monstrous figure of the station seemed to know this, towering with promise; it cast a long shadow as they approached.</p><p>“Alright, that’s first approach.” He said as they entered the wide stretch of docking space, hundreds of meters of a slow push. The process was notoriously slow, encumbered as ports were with traffic in the three-dimensional space and lousy pilots. Ezra clicked the communication set into the open position and relayed their trajectory.</p><p>A small <em>copy</em> came as a reply.</p><p>“I think it would benefit that I reiterate some things.”</p><p>“Again?” She looked at him as though to beg relief from this impending conversation. They’d covered this ground twice while traveling from Ukiuq. She sighed, picked at a piece of dried meat from the cloth Aput had given her.</p><p>She held it towards him, offering. He picked out a small piece, popped it in his mouth, talked through it, uncouth as it was.</p><p>“There is no harm in discussing such things, even if it is, admittedly, ad nauseum.” He wanted to prepare her, that was all. He didn’t want her to be lacking in information nor the confidence that came with it.</p><p>“It <em>will</em> make me nauseous.” She mumbled while taking in an irritated sigh. She wrapped the cloth back up, stowed it in her pocket.</p><p>Ezra wondered if it was, indeed, unnecessary but the tower only grew closer.</p><p>“Fine. Run <em>me</em> through it, then. You do the talking and I’ll do the listening.”</p><p>Her brow furrowed in a look of suspicion. </p><p>“Don’t give me that. I’ll just sit here, quiet-like, and receptive.” Cee shifted, got comfortable, glanced at him and held up a finger to initiate a count.</p><p>“The Rim is big, so we stick together –“ She said and Ezra could tell he was getting the condensed version. He had likely added more flourish than was necessary and it was an interesting thing to hear summarized his own words. He nearly opened his mouth to add but stilled himself.</p><p>He’d assured her the opportunity of unbroken talk.</p><p>“ – at <em>all</em> times.” She looked at him as though she’d known what he’d take issue with. What he’d consider important.</p><p>She stared ahead, continued her recitation.</p><p>"No Throwers in the Post unless we really need them; in that case, concealed.” Ezra blinked at her; she really was taking her bid to summarize to heart. He specifically recalled saying <em>more</em> than that, and if he hadn’t believed she understood, he would have wanted clarification on ‘<em>when we really need them’</em>.</p><p>“Any hint of trouble and we make for the jumper - ” Cee said, paused.</p><p>Ezra looked at her; it was taking true restraint to not add on –</p><p>“ – but we stick together.” She’d drawn out the <em>but</em> just to irritate him, he knew, but he nodded regardless.</p><p>Okay, maybe he had focused a little too much on <em>that</em> particular piece, but it had been worth reiterating.</p><p>“In and out. No touching anything. I’m not <em>five</em> by the way.” She grimaced over it, which was fair.</p><p>“That goes for <em>both</em> of us, trust me.” He interjected, quickly, not wanting her to think he would make any further infringement on her briefing.</p><p>“And, you do most of the talking, not because you don’t trust me –“ she turned her head to look at him, some sweet-mockery built in to her expression.</p><p>“- but because the contact is <em>an unrepentant, ill-humored son of a bitch with no particular set of morals and who is lacking in any decent qualities - </em>” She said, grinning over her rather impressive attempt at his accent.</p><p>“ – <em>but who does know all the sources for decent employ.”</em></p><p>Ezra grinned something wide; his rant, verbatim.</p><p>It had not been a mistake to make one final pass at it; Cee had done a splendid job. He thought, perhaps, it might be the way to do things from here on. Formerly it had been he who would describe the majority of their intentions, and her who posed the questions. With some experience under both their belts, he figured that time came they changed their technique.</p><p>“Nice<em> summary</em>. Your memory for oration is frightening, birdie.” Ezra shook his head, glanced at her as he turned the proximity alert off: the final approach.</p><p>“Thank you.” She said, smile tugging at her features.</p><p>He flicked the switch that activated the docking bracers. It was premature but it didn’t matter; they wouldn’t yield any drag in the Black. He looked at her again, self-satisfaction written all over her features.</p><p>Her <em>twang</em> had been particularly entertaining, and, <em>Kevva,</em> he really hoped he didn’t sound <em>that</em> bad. He imagined – hoped – she was milking it.</p><p>“As is your attempt at an accent. Keep it up and they’ll think you’re mine.” Ezra added, hand and head distracted by his movements over the rock hopper, <em>before</em> realizing the content of it, what he had just said.</p><p>Ezra was struck with a sudden, unfortunate thrill of worry. They never discussed her father, of Damon-adjacent subjects, unless she brought it into the conversation <em>first.</em></p><p>They had especially never discussed his role, whatever it was, in her life. He wasn’t her father, nor did he consider himself so, even if playing the role suited on occasion. They had – more than once – allowed the assumptions amongst others to endorse the idea. And, on an occasion or two, they had leveraged it.</p><p>Still, what he had just said, it all seemed rather … foot in mouth.</p><p>But, Cee.</p><p>If she was bothered by it, affected, she didn’t show it.</p><p>She didn’t say <em>anything</em>. She only did as she often did when he said something tedious, or stupid, or not particularly interesting. She shook her head, rolled her eyes.</p><p>They sat in silence as the radio crackled, offering their destination. Ezra felt as though he’d just accidentally strayed into new territory, bright and blinding. He wasn’t sure if the silence that was emanating was an uncomfortable one or whether it was a natural, fine thing.</p><p>Sometimes it seemed as though this girl had him continuously tripping over his own feet. The learning curve was <em>steep.</em></p><p>“Docking for fifty-four.” Ezra said, closing the communication with Port Tower.</p><p>Their destination grew closer, imminent. Ezra turned to Cee; she looked focused, eyes locked on the docking mechanism and still no sign that what he said had been worth another thought.</p><p>He’d take it.</p><p>“Not that I don’t fully believe in your abilities, little bird, but why don’t you switch places with me and let me steer her in.” Ezra looked over at her, his expression soft; he didn’t want her, for one moment, to spin into a cycle of personal doubt.</p><p>He was certain she could handle docking, or at least he believed she was capable, but it wasn’t like docking with a Towline. Nothing but the minutiae of the terminal line-up were automatic. The process was painfully manual, especially for crafts of their class.</p><p>He imagined one of those impressive Centralian crafts would dock with ease, would glide in and attach without a single shudder; he’d never seen one docked at this port – <em>never</em> - so he’d be forever left with his assumptions.</p><p>“Okay.” She said easy, compliant, with no hint of betrayal or disappointment.</p><p>He gave her a look – one she couldn’t see – as she didn’t so much move out of his way as he made the shift, but rather climbed <em>over</em> him, settled into his chair as he settled into hers.</p><p>Ezra smiled, fondness seemingly ever present. It wasn’t a thing he was used to feeling over any-being.  </p><p>Then, he turned his attention back to the task at hand.</p><p>“Thrusters when I say, okay?” He leaned over the joystick, peered up as the Towline grew large with proximity.</p><p>“Yeah.” From his peripheral he could see her activating the required safeties, checking for the appropriate lights.</p><p>They slid into their easy routine; if there was one thing they had <em>mastered</em> as partners, it was managing the rock jumper.</p><p>Ezra guided them straight and true while Cee responded to his requests with perfect timing. The closer they got to docking, the more monstrous the Post seemed; it was as though they were being swallowed, their craft small and insignificant.</p><p>Moments later, with loud, resonating metallic groans and ticks, the rock jumper was docked with the Post.</p>
<hr/><p>The station was cramped.</p><p>This wasn’t Cee’s first time on a trading post station, but it was her first time experiencing one so close to Central.</p><p>It seemed impossible for something so immense to be so crowded, so lacking in any real <em>space.</em> From the outside it had appeared a monolith. It looked vast and vacant, as though it couldn’t possibly be filled with enough material, with enough activity to justify its size.</p><p>Perhaps it had been wishful thinking, a latent desire to be surrounded by an openness unachievable in the rock jumper. Ukiuq had been an impossible tease, especially after the long travel from Saharn, a place that had been equally claustrophobic considering they’d spent much of the time in the rock jumper or toiling under the suffocating sun.</p><p>She didn’t wish to return to Central, but she had to admit an appreciation for the respite it had offered from the claustrophobia of the Black.</p><p>She bumped shoulders with a passing man; he didn’t even glance at her, would have likely run her down had their collision been more direct. She stumbled, feet catching, a near fall.</p><p>A hand landed on her shoulder, gripped the fabric of her clothing, and bodily rediverted her.</p><p>Ezra had reeled her in, had pulled her closer; it reminded her of when she’d taken heat-sick on Saharn.</p><p>“Easy, birdie. Careful.” He said, voice clipped.</p><p>“I’m trying.” She bit back; it was terribly dissonant, the transition from that small planetary settlement and this bustling, uncaring port.</p><p>She understood, now, his irritating reiteration of <em>sticking together</em>. Half of what he had told her had been <em>that</em>. Near everything had ended with, <em>and we stick together.</em></p><p>Bodies moved around them, pushed without any care. Normally, before him, she would have shrugged from such a hold. However, it was too easy to imagine falling and being trampled in the main concourse, so disorganized were the movements of the beings around her.</p><p>Ezra nodded, though she knew he wasn’t looking at her. His gaze was forward-facing, taking in every little detail that lay before them. He looked unaffected, uninterested by the activity that surrounded them.</p><p>She tried to watch, tried to get a sense of what <em>she</em> should be feeling outside of the anxious flutter of a body being pressed from all sides.</p><p>He smiled at some passersby. He nodded at others. He stared, expression cold and avoidant, in the face of certain crowds.</p><p>He’d been so easy, so loose, on Ukiuq; watching him resettle into the same man she’d seen in the Green felt like some small loss.</p><p>Now, Cee couldn’t crack the code, couldn’t see whom received what version of Ezra and why.</p><p>The only consistency was the tense grip he maintained on her shoulder. It didn’t hurt, it didn’t feel like a thing meant to trap or control her.</p><p>Rather, it felt like a tether, meant to connect them.</p><p>Cee tried <em>not</em> to give in to her mind’s preoccupation with comparisons made between Ezra and her father, but it was difficult, so stark were the differences.</p><p>The firm hand on her shoulder was so different from her father’s loose meanderings.</p><p>She had many clear memories of falling behind in thick crowds, in throngs of bodily limbs and structures she couldn’t see over.</p><p>Cee could remember a particularly frightening time when she’d lost sight of her father all together. She could remember that stomach-sick thrill of terror that rose as she watched him disappear in the crowd, his pace too fast. She could remember looking for ages before finding him leaned over cheap wares in a vendor’s stall, how he hadn’t noticed she’d been searching and scared.</p><p>She’d been eight years old, and her father had looked down at her and said, <em>it’s a decent deal.</em></p><p>She still couldn’t remember what he’d purchased that day; her heart had been thrumming so viciously she could not, to this day, remember the walk back to the pod-bay, the resolution of that trip.</p><p><em>No matter what</em>, Ezra had said, <em>we stick together.</em></p><p><em>Keep up, Cee</em>, Damon had said.</p><p>She was still processing things, <em>all of it.</em></p><p>If she could have peered into her future months before, could have been shown her current life, she never would have understood. She never would have slept again for her confusion over it, her fear of it.</p><p>She would have never understood the hand at her back, the man beside her, the visuals before her; that these things were <em>good.</em></p><p>Ezra had been so <em>serious</em> about it: <em>we stick together.</em></p><p>Cee swallowed against the obtrusive spate of reflection; this wasn’t the time for it.</p><p>Ezra pushed them deeper into the station, the world opening up just a bit as the crowd grew thinner, allowing her more space as they reached the ring of the main atrium.</p><p>Like most trading posts, the atrium was the fulcrum, acting as point of contact and entry for the station’s many limbs. The height of it was staggering; it likely boasted that of a mid-size Centralian skyscraper.</p><p>Lights and banners and all manner of decorations lined the entirety of its height. Some stalls leaned over the edges of their boundaries, dirty and creaking. Others boasted balconies and patrons, the latter buoyant with drink and in threat of falling into the void below.</p><p>It was an odd mix of what made up both Central and the world of Floaters, Fringelings. It seemed to have the infrastructure expected of a large, thriving economy, but was, simultaneously, tainted with the din of questionable deals and offers made, and the grime of something that had never been washed.</p><p>The Post was poorly lit. It would be easy to disappear into its alleys, to fall into the gaping, empty center. She imagined that the poor lighting – offering the entire structure a dinginess, a suggestion of being a thing made only of underbelly – was intentional.</p><p>The beings around them were fascinating.</p><p>Thanks to recent experience, she could recognize the fashion of Central, that at least some of the population of the Post was made up of those who called Central home.</p><p>There were, of course, Floaters and Fringelings abound.</p><p>Many were plain-clothed – much like Ezra and herself – and clearly only there to make fast deals, holding no intention to stay for long.</p><p>Some were cloaked, head to toe, in flamboyant fabrics, or adorned by chains and jewels she knew were associated with Worship and Nobility. Some were scantily clad, more flesh than cloth. Some were heavily tattooed, designs intricate and speaking of some culture unknown to her. Some wore strange, complicated devices; it was hard to say if they were practical or purely decorative.</p><p>There were those, too, that were rag-covered and destitute looking. Some had open wounds, displayed them with hands that reached out, bobbing, begging. Some were pulled forward my another in chains.</p><p>Others were dressed in ways she’d never seen, couldn’t describe.</p><p>There were many types here, all manner of being, and not a single one spared them a glance.</p><p> Cee couldn’t help but feel as though she fit in far better here than she had back on Central; she couldn’t be sure if that was a good thing.</p><p>With the crowd easing, Ezra’s hand fell from its place on her person, removing its solid support.</p><p>She looked at him, feeling as though it was evidence enough that they had enough space, privacy to talk.</p><p>“How far to the contact?” She asked, the word still felt odd on her tongue. It made her feel as though she really were his <em>partner</em>. She’d never been solicited into such talk before.</p><p>Ezra didn’t look any less tense and she wondered what this place was to him, if it was a place frequented or best left alone. He’d told her he’d been throughout his life, had watched it change, but he’d never said how he’d felt about it.</p><p>If she were to guess simply by observing him, she’d bargain his feelings weren’t positively inclined.</p><p>“It’s not much further - “ he said, nodding his head ahead of them, at some destination she couldn’t divine, “ - he likes to keep his business out in the open, on the beaten track, as it were.”</p><p>“That’s good.” She said, she guessed. The idea of walking through those dimly lit entrances, deep into dizzying passages, left her feeling like a caged thing.</p><p>A somewhat humorless smiled tugged at his lips as he looked down at her.</p><p>“Easier to control what is seen, perceived, by prying eyes. Don’t fall for it, birdie.”</p><p>Cee nodded, believed him. She remembered what he’d shared before their landing and this only added to her understanding of it all.</p><p>It was refreshing, she thought, realizing too late that her mind was mounting another comparison between her father and Ezra. Most of her observations had gone mostly ignored, before. It had never been very educational, working with her father. He had valued skills, hard skills, and had rarely traded with her the economy of knowledge.</p><p>She wondered, for the first time, if perhaps he merely hadn’t been able to articulate it, the things he knew.</p><p>She couldn’t imagine her father saying what Ezra just had, though perhaps he had <em>tried</em>. <em>Don’t be stupid</em>, he might have said, or, <em>let me worry about that</em>, and,<em> yeah, good.</em> To him, her father, it may have been the same as sharing a direct truth. He may have thought that <em>that</em> was what communicating was.</p><p>She could feel her opinion of him sharpening and softening with every new analysis; it was exhausting.</p><p>“Just through here.” Ezra informed her, nodding towards a small squeeze.</p><p>Cee followed Ezra closely as they took a turn between two stalls – one selling alcohol, the other strange scraps of metal – and continued into one of the Post’s arms.</p><p>True to what he’d told her, the entrance of their destination was close to the atrium’s bustling activity. It was an inconspicuous little front, framed by the banners of some cause or culture she didn’t recognize or know. A single, long light hummed above the entrance; there was no sign, in Basic or otherwise, that alluded to its purpose.</p><p>A being with extensive tattoos sat on an old munitions crate in front; they took a long drag from a smoking pipe-piece, glanced at the pair, looked them up and down. Their expression did not change as they gave a short, stilted nod in Ezra’s direction.</p><p>Cee wondered if Ezra knew them. The interaction had been so benign and unchallenged that she couldn’t tell. Based on what Ezra had told her, she would have expected some elaborate custom of proving one’s identity.</p><p>They entered the unassuming building and Cee was taken aback by the room that opened to them. It was unusually barren, plain. The banners that hung outside hung also within. A plain table, meant to be a desk, she imagined, though lacking in any accoutrement useful to work, lay in the direct middle and center of the room.</p><p>An odd choice, the Floater in her assessed. The space seemed an incredible waste, seemed to be lacking in any utility.</p><p>From the opposite side, through a passage similar to that which they’d crossed, two beings emerged.</p><p>One was large, both in height and girth, and wore a barely kept reddish beard; it matched his unkempt reddish hair that lay in disarray on his head.</p><p>Floater or Fringeling, Cee knew immediately. His person carried the uncaring fashion of someone who either spent, or had spent, ample time in the Black. He carried himself without care for class, without expression of religion or creed. He had a knife, sheathed, at his hip, but that was all; she imagined it was meant for show.</p><p>It looked more a thing of habit than skilled use. She guessed he won all his arguments and scraps with pure brawn, the throwing of his weight.</p><p>The second walked as though the floor offended him, steps careful, yet graceful. He was shorter than his companion, shorter than Ezra but perhaps only just so. His robe was a long, elegant thing, colored a beautiful deep green and lined at its hemming with gold.</p><p>He was clearly of nobility, Cee, despite her lacking in education regarding such matters, knew this. His short, wavy grey hair was neatly coiffed and exquisite; she could make out a tangle of something gold in its careful arrangement.</p><p>He looked like something that was meant to be preserved and kept from the dirt and grime of places like <em>this;</em>she imagined he was of insufferable character.</p><p>Cee tried not to shift her weight in an anxious rocking as she and Ezra stopped before their hosts; she glanced at Ezra.</p><p>He didn’t look even <em>slightly</em> nostalgic, <em>pleased</em>, to see this old acquaintance – <em>was a friend, once, </em>Ezra had said – as he stepped forward.</p><p>The larger man laughed, a booming, horrible noise in the emptiness of the vacuous space.</p><p>“Kevva’s name. It has been a long while, Ez.”</p>
<hr/><p>The first thought Ezra had upon seeing Ori – a first in nearly ten years – was whether he, too, looked so aged. They were nearly the same age, and the change was jarring; the man had gained more weight than he’d ever seen on his frame, and his hair had thinned. His gaze, though still filled with a false friendliness, had hardened into something <em>callous.</em></p><p> </p><p>The second was less a thought and more of the mental motion of <em>bracing</em>. Ori was abrasive, exhausting. He wouldn’t be able to exercise his own form of passive aggression – thorough verbal lashings and character slaughter – given the power dynamic he had installed them within.</p><p>He’d have to bear this man’s behavior, fully, without transgression. It was made all the more sensitive by ten long years spent unknowing of each other. He knew much had happened; a mere glance of the space told him enough.</p><p>It was furnished, or, rather, replete in the way of the nobility. Ezra wasn’t a stupid man, he knew Ori wouldn’t – <em>couldn’t</em> - have risen to such status, but, what it implied was likely worse: that he had <em>aligned</em> himself with nobility.</p><p>The man who shadowed him – not because of his station but because he wouldn’t be demeaned to approach any closer – was proof enough. Ezra could tell by his robes that he was a man of meaning, casted and likely, as they told it, sun-born.</p><p>Ezra forewent the greeting expected of those common born – a deep, back braking bow – and opted to ignore his presence entirely. There was no particular want or need to adhere to cultural oddities and nuances in the Post and his business wasn’t with <em>him.</em></p><p>And, Ori hadn’t mentioned it in their communications. It was an incredible, irritating <em>obstacle.</em> Ezra had always made it a point, a near <em>rule</em> to avoid nobility and their contracts.</p><p>Of course, Ezra was guilty of his own hidden truths. It was, as always, a thing of the economy of knowledge.</p><p>Neither had shown their hands.</p><p>Ori approached him with a toothy grin, looked him up and down. His eyes flickered toward Cee for the barest second. Interest flashed but he refrained for the moment, simply gave her an amused looked.</p><p>“Kevva’s name. It has been a long while, Ez.” He said as he extended his right hand.</p><p>Ezra had seen him assess him, take in his form. Ezra knew he was doing this on purpose. Ori, if anything, enjoyed <em>humiliation</em>.</p><p>Ezra gave him his own tight smile, a thing that wasn’t exactly <em>kind</em>. He would play this game, for now. He was a <em>very</em> hard man to humiliate, to push into shame.</p><p>“Ori. Indeed it has.” He said, didn’t make any move to return the gesture. Ori <em>knew</em> he couldn’t. The man smiled, delighted in it. Ezra could sense Cee shifting in his peripheral. The whole thing had likely put her on edge, had awakened that fire.</p><p>“Oh, my apologies.” Ori said, shaking his head as though he truly regretted such rudeness. Ezra blinked, let him go through the motions of his very characteristic need to be an <em>asshole.</em></p><p>“Never thought I’d see the day –“ Ori sized him up again, made a show of sighing, looking so very sorry for his misfortunes.</p><p>“ – a dry breach, you? The Black <em>does</em> have a sense of humor.”</p><p>Ezra shrugged, raised his hand in a gesture of defeat, the kind one raised when yielding to the universe itself.</p><p>He didn’t correct the man. There was no need to. There would be no difference to Ori between an arm lost to a dry breach and an arm lost to the stupidity of conflict.</p><p>He heard Cee take a scandalized breath. She wanted to say something, no doubt, and <em>may have</em> if he hadn’t been so adamant that she avoid engaging too deeply with the man.</p><p>It was for <em>this</em> that he had been so bullheaded about preparing her. He imagined she had plenty to say and that he would hear it all later, when this pettiness was through. But for now, they needed to cast aside their egos. The man was a veritable <em>wealth</em> of connections; he needed but one of reliable quality and they could move on.</p><p>They could pay for the information in points and wash their hands of it. They just needed <em>one.</em></p><p>“You know how it is. Can’t say the Black was all that kind to you either, Ori.” Ezra said, already bored of this.</p><p>“You calling me fat, Ez.”</p><p>“And bald.”</p><p>Ori chuckled but still ran his hand through the whisps he had left.</p><p>“And a little girl. Didn’t take you for the kid type. You meet some pretty thing out there in the Black –“</p><p><br/>
“Now when would I have done that.” They talked over each other.</p><p>He’d know this man for most of his own life, had been introduced to him by his brother. An unfortunate reconnaissance if he ever knew one. There had been a time when the three of them had enjoyed each other’s company, but it had been – in retrospect -  a bond of need, of drink and of beings who shared the same poor morals.</p><p>“ – or the Green, she a Sater kid?” The man smiled as if knowing something particularly unsavory.</p><p>Ori looked at Cee, eyes travelling up and down, and it took <em>restraint</em> not to push him bodily back, to stop whatever assessment he was making.</p><p>He turned back to Ezra, shrugged innocently; he looked as though this conversation was a thing of curiosity and not some drawn out attempt at humiliation.</p><p>“And I don’t know, Ez. Been a while since I saw you – “ His smile fell as he stared him down, like an old, unwanted friend.</p><p>Ezra stared back, his gaze sharp and cold.</p><p>They were both no doubt lost, to some degree, in the memory of <em>last time</em>.</p><p>Then, he smiled again, shook his head as though it were nothing. Ezra relaxed his fist, unaware that he had been clenching it so hard that his fingernails bit into palm.</p><p>“ – and, she can’t be more than, what, eleven standard, twelve?”</p><p>“Twelve? Seriously? I’m fifteen.” Cee finally ejected, clearly unable to stand silence any longer. Ezra was only grateful that it hadn’t been something more incendiary.</p><p>“Birdie –“ Ezra said low, an attempt to shush her. The last thing they needed was for this man to see the fire in her, to enjoy some repartee until, without warning, it turned violent.</p><p>“Fifteen.” Ori laughed and Ezra gave a small lift of his brow as if to appease, an expression that acknowledged the other man’s mirth but did nothing to endorse it.</p><p>“My stars, Ezra. Interesting company to be keeping.”</p><p>He laughed again and Ezra felt his body tensing; he hadn’t forgotten this, the passive aggressive motions they used to both meander through. It had been different back then, when he’d had little to lose but a bit of blood – these conversations had, in the past, had the strong likelihood for turning scrap-violent – but now he knew he had to keep it straight.</p><p>He couldn’t do anything that might touch a tender nerve and turn him against them. The man looked at him and laugh, had seen something amusing in his silence. Ezra just wished this <em>over</em>.</p><p>“You quit it, now.” Ezra said casually, as though he had enjoyed their mostly one-sided joust but needed to move on to more serous things. “We’re here to talk business and we are wasting time, valuable as it is –“</p><p>“Business? Is that what we’re here to talk about?”</p><p>“You know it is, despite all this filibuster.” Ezra said as he gave the man a hard stare. Ori returned his gaze, and, for a moment, Ezra could see that flash, that glint of anger. They had plenty of bad blood between them and it seemed as though Ori wasn’t ready to pass through it.</p><p>Ori’s smile, tight and fake as anything, fell for a long moment.</p><p>“Yeah, well, you know how I feel bout surprises – “ He did: he didn’t like them.</p><p>No one in the Black did and Ezra hardly thought this counted. They’d both been their share of clandestine regarding this meeting and Ezra wondered if he’d miscalculated, if he’d failed to see that the man wasn’t so <em>thoroughly </em>serving someone other than himself.</p><p>Ezra glanced at the nobleman who had yet to speak.</p><p>“ – and you didn’t tell me nothin’ about this –“ He gestured at the space where his arm <em>should</em> be, an amused look of disbelief on his face.</p><p>“ – or that.” The wave of his hand, dismissive, carried over to Cee, hand rolling over to point at her as though she were an afterthought, a pet he kept at his side.</p><p>He hadn’t.</p><p>Both had been an intentional omission.</p><p>He knew the man well enough to understand it wouldn’t have served him, wouldn’t have created the makings of a friendly chat, or sent the man into a bout of comfort-talk.</p><p>He would have felt no pity and would have believed Ezra was searching for it; he would have disconnected their communications with a stolid, <em>you got what you deserved, bastard.</em></p><p>Ezra shook his head.</p><p>“Considering your own omission, I’d call it even – “ Ezra glanced at the nobleman; the bastard hadn’t said a word. He didn’t need to, he looked as though he wanted to wash his hands of the mere sight of them, “though I do have to say, given your past with nobility, I am a bit nonplussed.”</p><p>“Still a poet, I see.” It wasn’t said in admiration or fondness; it was filled with distaste, contempt. Still, his tone remained light, almost jovial.</p><p>“Business, Ori.” Ezra said, shifting his weight, watched as Ori turned on his heel to look at his companion, swiveled back around to face him again; he <em>loathed</em> this space. It <em>reeked</em> of a noble touch.</p><p>Sparse. Meant to lay you bear. Meant to have you stand in judgement with nothing to so much as look at, to lean on. Ezra wondered if this nobleman knew that Ori was, naturally, an incredible slob.</p><p>“Yeah, yeah, business – “</p><p>Ezra glanced at Cee; she’d been looking at the nobleman and he’d just caught her as she looked away, uncomfortable. The nobleman continued to stare at her; Ezra felt his irritation rising.</p><p>“I know there’s plenty to be had in the Fringes, considering the new regulations imposed by Central.” Ezra continued, intent on keeping this conversation on track.</p><p>The sooner they had a name, a job, <em>anything</em>, they could leave.</p><p>“Sure, sure,” Ori said as he scratched at his beard, “but like I said, I didn’t know about –“ Ori gestured at the two of them, looking as though he were straining to think of an agreeable solution.</p><p>Ezra knew the man was being intentionally contrarian, was trying to <em>push</em> him into begging. The man had a thing for it; he loved to see a being struck down, loved to see them plead and squirm.</p><p>“You know as good as I those factors shouldn’t sway when it comes to negotiating for work delivered and points made.” Ezra raised his hand, sensing an interruption; beside him Cee shifted again.</p><p>Ori wasn’t getting what he wanted from him, but Cee …</p><p>“Work delivered?” He huffed as if Ezra had said something truly ridiculous.</p><p>“We just finished two jobs, back-to-back. Both with payout.” Cee said and though Ezra wouldn’t have brought it up himself – Ori, he knew, was fully aware of his work history – but he was proud, impressed.</p><p>Her voice hadn’t a hint of anxiety over the rather unpleasant discourse. Her unsettled fidgeting had stilled, and she had stepped forward, arms crossed, her affect nearly <em>bored.</em>  </p><p>The thing that had her correcting the man over her age had retreated and in its place was a confident young woman.</p><p>Still, Ori looked at Cee like she was some young, useless thing, soft and unskilled. If Cee had noticed, had understood his inspection of her for what it was, she did not let on, did not seem perturbed.</p><p>“Hate to say it, but, I ain’t got a lot of work for either of you –“ He said to Cee and Ezra could see the cruel thing in his gaze sharpen; the words that followed weren’t particularly surprising.</p><p>Ori looked at him, a grin tugging at his lips.</p><p>“ - ain’t nothin’ you, or her, can do now that a whole man can’t do better –“</p><p>“ - and I don’t talk make the habit of talking business with children, Ezra, or their babysitters.”</p><p>“Careful, Ori –“ Ezra felt heat flash up the back of his neck. In the past they would have come to blows by now.</p><p>“ – I’ll abide you this boorishness, but I will not allow you to insult my partner this way.” Ezra said, voice unwavering.</p><p>He knew, even as he said it, he had only opened them to further insult. It didn’t matter; he would never feel shame for his partnership with Cee.</p><p>“Partner?” He chuckled as he said it, looked back at the nobleman who’s expression remained the same; unmoved but <em>watching.</em></p><p>“That <em>child?</em>” He said, mocking.</p><p>Ezra knew it was coming but it still struck fury in him when Ori laughed again. This time it was genuine, a full laugh born of deep amusement.</p><p>Adrenaline struck, his heart increasing its pace. He was nearing that moment just before one’s vision sharpened, highlighting all in a miserable red.</p><p>“Fuck you.” Ezra heard Cee say. It held the same tone it had in the Green, when she threatened to <em>kill</em> him. As his own anger rose, and sensing Ori was about to cross a line, Ezra forgave the deal-dissolving</p><p>Then:</p><p>“The <em>mouth</em> on her! Well, maybe I do have a job for the little bitc –“</p><p>Now, he knew he wasn’t who he was twenty years ago - stronger, younger, bolder, <em>dumber </em>– and that his person no longer likely carried as great a threat as it once had in the past – two-armed, balanced, strung taught with a meanness that had drained over time – but, he felt that person rise.</p><p>The violent man within stirred, for this man did not know Cee.</p><p>Did not know that he owed her his life.</p><p>Without thinking, Ezra surged forward, finger pointing in Ori’s face.</p><p>Latently, he knew Cee had shifted next to him, had moved to <em>grab</em> him, to attempt to restrain him. She was not fast enough.</p><p>“You do <strong><em>not</em> </strong>fucking talk to her like that.” He shouted at Ori as he moved forward. Before he could understand his intentions, his hand was around his neck, pushing with enough force to have Ori stumbling backwards.</p><p>Ori’s heavy frame only aided the fall backwards, sending him into the desk, Ezra leaning over him as he let his back collapse against the frame.</p><p>“There you are, Ez!” He shouted at him, pushing slightly against his hold; despite Ori’s advantage of size, of height, Ezra had always been better at grappling, at understanding the mechanics of a good hold, of the manipulation of another’s posture.</p><p>Ezra pushed down, pressed his thumb into the sensitive place behind the man’s ear. Something in him delighted as the other man grimaced.</p><p>“Another word, Ori. This is my warning.” He didn’t need to finish the threat; they were both speaking the same language, old as it was.</p><p>And he <em>would</em>. He would kill him, his old partner, a once <em>friend</em>, for something as simple as <em>words</em>.</p><p>Ezra could feel the adrenaline rushing through him as he breathed deeper, more quickly; he hadn’t felt this since their flight from the Green. The desperate need to defend a being, to <em>kill</em> for them.</p><p>“Ish’ta waru.” The nobleman said from his place. The bastard hadn’t moved a muscle.</p><p>Latently, Ezra thought that when he had the time, when this was done with, when they had a better plan, he would devote time to learning this high, haughty dialect.</p><p>He could feel Ori’s throat undulate under his hand as he tried to speak. Ezra clenched <em>harder</em>, enjoyed the twin tears – a natural response to being choked – that trailed from his eyes, before releasing enough to allow him the room the talk, to interpret.</p><p>Ori chuckled something wheezing even as he winced for the pain of it.</p><p>“I see it now. You’re desperate.”</p><p>And <em>that</em>, of all of it, struck.</p><p>It was not because Ezra was a particularly egoistical man, nor because he was vain for his reputation.</p><p>It was because it was true.</p><p>It would be inaccurate – generous – to call what he was feeling ‘<em>humiliation’</em>, but, as Cee stood behind him and a long stretch of their continued lacking opened before him, Ezra felt that thing that had been dogging him: <em>doubt</em> and -</p><p>“You ever … hear the saying … ‘fear the … desperate man?’” He said, even as he writhed under Ezra’s single-handed grip. He smirked even as his face reddened, his voice diminished into a hoarse rasp.</p><p><em>Kevva</em>, Ezra thought, <em>I’ll choke the life from him.</em></p><p>“Well.” A cough, a sputter. “Not very frightening.”</p><p>- and <em>shame.</em></p><p>“Cee.” Ezra spat, voice low, hoarse with anger.</p><p>“Yeah?” Her voice, though strong, was filled with uncertainty; he was grateful it was a nuance only he would have been able to divine. To Ori it may have sounded confident, unimpressed.</p><p>Only Ezra could hear the quake underneath.</p><p>“We are done here.” Ezra said. The statement, decision, felt as though it was filled to the brim with a life small, meaningless jobs, of pitiful injects and unsavory risks. It felt like the most acute failure for, he knew that by the standards of the Black, this was recoverable and standard fair.</p><p>It wasn’t the situation that had deteriorated, that had delivered an overabundance of something unkind. He realized the reality of what was transpiring as he loosened his grip on his old friend’s neck: it was <em>he</em> who had changed, who had become something different.</p><p>Ori coughed as his knees buckled sending him into an unfortunate collapse on the floor, his body clapping against the floor.</p><p>The only benefit of the barren room was that the wound <em>echoed.</em></p><p>“Oh c’mon, Ez. This ain’t … got to be a thing, like … old times and all.” Ori said it as he gasped.</p><p>As he collected himself, pulled at the collar of his shirt as though he’d been merely inconvenienced even as he rolled into a sitting position.</p><p>He looked like some beached beast.</p><p>Ori coughed and gagged. Sputtered. He did all of this with the the air of someone who still had the upper hand.</p><p>Ezra ignored him, a bastard of a voice endorsing that Ori, in fact, <em>did</em>.</p><p>“Isk uman ine’ptu hut.” Ezra heard the nobleman say.</p><p>“Let’s go.” Ezra said to Cee as he clenched and unclenched his hand, all for the ache of it. His right shoulder burned; he’d feel all of that the next cycle.</p><p>“Huh … Is that right?” Ori choked.</p><p>Ezra ignored him, ignored <em>both</em> of them.</p><p>“Hey! Cee, is it?” Ezra’s hand twitched into a tight fist and he forced himself to loosen it, forced himself to unbundle his shoulders and <em>breathe.</em>  </p><p>“Don’t listen to him.” Ezra said to Cee as he shook his head and nodded at the door.</p><p>He wouldn’t physically guide her as he’d done in the crowd; he refused to give the bastard anymore ammunition with which to demean her.</p><p>He didn’t so much as glance at Ori or the man in the corner.</p><p>Cee, however, did.</p><p>It took all Ezra’s composure not to grab her by the arm and drag her bodily from the space, from this mess within which he had implanted them. Cee looked at him, then back at the pair gifting them a fierce glare, her expression incensed.</p><p>Ori laughed.</p><p>Finally, she turned her back, joined him. She caught his gaze; her eyes were painfully full of unspoken frustrations, anger, of a need to talk. He gave her a nod – <em>later</em> and <em>I know</em> and, more importantly, <em>I’m sorry</em> - and they walked away, side by side.</p><p>Ori’s voice called after them.</p><p>Ezra knew the man loved the final word no matter how useless the ones he chose often were.</p><p>“Says he knows you, little girl.” Ori shouted hoarse; he made no move to follow them.</p><p>Ezra knew he was casting a line, baiting them.</p><p>He didn’t look back even as he responded.</p><p>“I assure you, he does not.” He bit, rage simmering.</p><p>He tossed aside the curtain that shadowed the door, allowed Cee to pass him, unwilling to leave her back exposed, and followed her into the alley that now seemed darker and deeper in the heart of the Post.</p>
<hr/><p>The man – the <em>nobleman</em>, third of his name, sun-born and casted - narrowed his eyes, memory stirring.</p><p>The girl was bland as far as people went. Bland in fashion, of face. Bland in a way that urged you to forget, and quickly. He’d seen many like her: scuttling things that made only passing impressions.  </p><p>Yet.</p><p>He stared. The girl glanced at him, once, twice, many more, and his gaze did not waver. Could he, he would pierce her, pull her open and search for that which held his attention. She was too benign to warrant such attention, and the man even more so.</p><p>He only spared him a passing look, once and then never again. He did not know him. He had not been particularly moved, interested, when Orith Fant had discussed his history. He was as unextraordinary as they came; another Aurelac hungry mite.</p><p>Even when the man, in a display of uncouth aggression, pushed at Orith, held him down, the nobleman stared at the girl.</p><p>He felt such a delicious thrill when she cringed under his scrutiny. He could see it, a bodily shudder. Things like her – floaters, human pieces of stray dust that settled and gathered in clumps, writhing masses – entertained him. They lived, <em>acted</em>, as they were: expendable.</p><p>Both she and the man looked so delightfully disposable; like small creatures one would buy for a young thing.</p><p>Even as this uneducated brute of hers attempted so dearly, one-handed, to strangle Fant she looked at him. Did she fear his intervention? Hope for it?</p><p>She cringed again and looked away. She stepped forward, shuffled, her body lined with doubt. Would she herself intervene? He hoped so. It would be such a spectacle.</p><p> He could see a nervous tic – subtle movements of the jaw – ignite over the discomfort he’d caused her, that the scene her <em>partner</em> was making caused her. S</p><p>She could not bear even a single man’s regard, nor a fight amongst boys, and it struck him as terribly pathetic.</p><p>Her companion released the mass that was Fant and ushered her away like the girl child she was. To his satisfaction she turned to give one final look.</p><p>Her expression fell into a glare, angry, <em>unhappy</em>.</p><p>Then …</p><p>Yes.</p><p>He understood.</p><p>
  <em>Yes. </em>
</p><p><strong>“</strong>Isk uman ine’ptu hut.” He said to Fant; he could have demeaned himself and spoken in the Standard language, but he enjoyed allowing his words to settle in the air.</p><p>There was something wonderful about waving the trap before the channel rat and watching it walk right in.</p>
<hr/><p>Cee walked at Ezra’s side, <em>furious.</em></p><p>Anger curled in her chest making her heart race. Her teeth were clenched together so hard she was certain he’d break a tooth. She was blind for the severity of it. She no longer saw the wonderous sights around her. Through the haze of red and grey everyone looked the same, everyone looked <em>bland.</em> The adornments that had captivated now looked gaudy; the silks that seemed so fine would have looked just as fine being torn into pieces under her own fingers.</p><p>She was so angry it <em>ached.</em></p><p>The atrium opened to them and, as they approached it’s middle, Ezra stopped.</p><p>“I want you to understand something, Cee –“ He paused, looked as though he was collecting himself. It felt oddly intimate despite their exposure; not a single being cast a glance in their direction.</p><p>“ – <em>that,</em> all of it, was on me.” Cee shook her head, a rush of anger flying through her, hot and cloying.</p><p>“That’s bullshit –“ Cee said in an explosive huff, stunned. She wasn’t sure how he had come to that conclusion. She had been there, after all, and it was nowhere near the conclusion she herself had drawn.</p><p>The man, his former partner and friend, seemed an impossible character, a man of genuine ill repute. He was <em>vile</em> and his behavior was made all the more unpalatable by his silent companion.</p><p>Cee could <em>still</em> feel the cool drag of the nobleman’s gaze over her person.</p><p>Worse than the disrespect to her – she <em>was</em> a child but she wasn’t stupid, she wasn’t <em>naïve</em>, she understood what the man had been implying – was that which had been delivered to Ezra.</p><p>It had taken incredible intention to stand in silence, to not <em>react</em> to some of the more benign jabs at his character, his person. His intentional slight at the outset of their meeting – his right hand thrust forward with a mean grin – had sharpened her sense, made latent anxiety shift into immediate distrust.</p><p>She had watched Ezra carefully, had seen his cool and calm demeanor persevere, and had done her best to assume the same. For a moment it had been easy; she had slid into something unmoving, unconcerned.</p><p>Her irritation had risen as the conversation wore on and she thought of Ezra’s warning; he hadn’t been exaggerating, hadn’t been lying. The man was <em>terrible.</em> Though, he was no worse or better than those her father often kept acquaintanceship with. More than once he had gotten into physical and verbal scraps with people, he’d called friends. More than once he’d sported a scrape, a shiner, for a conversation turned unfriendly.</p><p>But this, this was different.</p><p>Her father had always been willing to play equal antagonist; she’d been scared in the past, yes, but she’d been scared because she could see it coming. She could see conversations drift toward dangerous, could see when her father’s cheeks turned flush with drink and anger.</p><p>This had evolved like something fine, each escalation wearing on her, on Ezra.</p><p>She’d spoken out when the man had insinuated her age; she had thought him <em>stupid</em> for the severe miscalculation, but more so, she had wanted to absolve Ezra of being assumed to be the kind of man that brought a ten-year-old to such dealings.</p><p>It hadn’t mattered, of course, may have made it all the worse.</p><p>From there she had alternated between listening to, watching Ezra and the man trade exhausting words, and sneaking hooded looks at the nobleman. Everytime she looked he was looking right back.</p><p>It had been unnerving.</p><p>Any opportunity to become anxious over it was extinguished by a new rise in the undulating conflict developing between Ori and Ezra.</p><p>It rose to a crescendo; she could <em>feel</em> Ezra’s irritation shift into a genuine anger as Ori mocked their knowing of each other, their partnership.</p><p>In that moment Cee had been thinking of the Green, of Central, of all the agony they’d endured.</p><p>Taken by it, furious at the continued insinuations, she lashed out. She rarely swore in earnest, but in a loose-lipped moment she shouted across the space: <em>fuck you.</em></p><p>If she was surprised for her expulsion of crudeness, she was shocked by Ezra’s fast movements of aggression. He had moved too fast for her to react with any particular meaning. A blink and he was pushing Ori back, hand around his throat.</p><p>Cee had felt a thrill of satisfaction followed closely by fear that Ezra would lose the upper hand, that this would devolve further than it already had.</p><p>Cee remembered feeling at a loss for what to do; she had stood there useless to him as he <em>defended</em> her, and all over <em>words.</em></p><p>She had seen Ezra kill and bargain, seen him threaten and coerce, but she had never seen <em>this</em>.</p><p>He had reacted, it seemed, without considering the consequences, the bulk of the man before him, the potential that the nobleman may join the fray.</p><p>His words had rung loud: <em>You do not fucking talk to her like that.</em><br/>
<br/>
They had been uncolored by his usually verbosity. They had been gruff, angry, <em>murderous.</em></p><p>Cee was fairly certain that this was the first time a being had defended her, and all for a cruel, vile spate of <em>words</em>. She’d never known such a thing.</p><p>Stood in the atrium, watching him rub his hand over his mouth, adrenaline still <em>burning</em>, she could not understand how he had come to interpret the events as solely his fault.</p><p>“It’s not bullshit, birdie. His intention was to bait me into altercation –“ He shook his head and Cee knew he didn’t <em>really</em> need to finish the thought; if that truly were the other man’s intention from the beginning, he’d succeeded.</p><p>“It was fully salvageable discourse. Any opportunities there may have been for us through Ori, we might as well consider them out of our reach – “ Ezra huffed, seemed to collect himself, seemed to brace himself for a mental moving on.</p><p>“ – Ori is well connected and my actions may have severed ties we have yet to even achieve.”</p><p><em>Oh</em>, Cee thought, understanding.</p><p>They’d be lucky if Ori didn’t <em>blacklist </em>them.</p><p>She frowned. Even if it <em>were</em> true, it was a hard burden to carry.</p><p>“Are you okay?” He asked, suddenly, and she was quick to respond.</p><p>His reaction to Ori’s words had been visceral, intense. She hadn’t considered that he had worried about how <em>she</em> had felt about them. She hadn’t thought he might assume she’d taken on true hurt for it.</p><p>“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. Really.” She didn’t feel the need to tell him that it hadn’t been the first time someone had said something vulgar to her. That people had said things before <em>just to be</em> crass. That when she and her father had been on the freighter on the way to the Green, a man had grabbed at her, tried to find purchase in her clothing as she crawled to the safety of their pod.</p><p>That she’d never said a thing to Damon who wouldn’t have done anything about it anyway.</p><p>“And, we’ll be fine.” She said, shaking her head as if to suggest it had all been a mere misstep.</p><p>“We will –“ Ezra said it over a sigh; it was the sound of someone who trusted int eh future but knew it would be full of very hard <em>work.</em></p><p>“ - but I apologize, still, for whatever trouble it brings.” She understood this was likely the best it was going to get; the pragmatist in him would only ever allow acceptance saddled right next to a healthy dose of guilt, of responsibility accepted.</p><p>“I mean – “ Cee paused, scrambling for something light-hearted, “we can always work for Aput.”</p><p>She hadn’t meant for it to be <em>funny</em>; it was only after she said it that she realized how ridiculous it was.</p><p>It was only after Ezra <em>laughed</em>, a most genuine thing and terribly contagious – she couldn’t help but grin so painfully it <em>hurt</em> just before breaking out into her own high giggle of amusement – did she realize it was <em>hilarious.</em></p><p>For a moment she felt better about the cycle, imagining them in an eternal deal with the Ukiuq elder as her personal valets.</p><p>It took them a moment to collect themselves and Cee imagined they looked deranged stood there in the middle an ambling crowd, snickering.</p><p>“That’s right, birdie. There’s always <em>that.</em>” Ezra said with some levity, a small smile. It suited him far better than the murderous look he’d worn on their exit from that disastrous meeting.</p><p>“Well, we have half a cycle to kill. What do you say to a hot meal, one that wasn’t reformed?” Ezra asked; his voice still held some frustration, a minor heaviness, but he sounded a little lighter.</p><p>Cee nodded vigorously over the idea.</p><p>“If I have to have another Thalino broth I think I’ll die.” She wasn’t kidding; it had been a novelty in Central and had transgressed into a dreaded staple.</p><p>“Noted.” Ezra nodded as though it were a serious thing and Cee couldn’t help but smile again.</p><p>They’d be <em>fine.</em></p><p>Distracted, she forgot to ask what he thought the man had meant: <em>says he knows you, little girl.</em></p>
<hr/><p>They restocked their rations and refilled their water reservoirs, performed some last-minute maintenance and tidying – Cee spent some time digging sand from the hatch panel – and confirmed their launch order with the Tower.</p><p>It was a complete failure of a stop-over, one that had waster points and fuel, but was, ultimately, recoverable.</p><p>Recoverable as long as they were able to source employ within the next few cycles. Cee, personally, was not concerned; they <em>would</em> manage.</p><p>She was happy to leave the Post, considered the matter behind them before they’d even departed. It was <em>easy </em>to fall back into a rhythm, even if the cycles that stretched before them opened uncertain.</p><p>It was nearly time for their launch, their detachment from the Post when:</p><p>A trill from the comm.</p><p>Cee looked over at the panel.</p><p>It wasn’t the tone she associated with official communications.</p><p>It was a personal hail.</p>
<hr/><p>Ezra had heard the tone, and, with some small blossom of irritation, <em>anger</em> renewed, knew it to be Ori.</p><p>The comm-chain-code that lit up bright on the panel confirmed this; Cee had looked at him, eyes wide.</p><p>“Is that –“ Cee had started and Ezra nodded.</p><p>“Yes. Indeed it is.”</p><p>“Might as well –“ Cee shifted.</p><p>Ezra knew curiosity when he heard it and though he saw no real reason to allow the man another opportunity debase them, he also knew that it meant Ori likely <em>needed</em> something from them.</p><p>Somewhere in between their last meeting, Ori had come up wanting.</p><p>With immense reluctance, Ezra opened the channel, responding at Ori’s attempt to hail them. The man’s voice came through in the exact moment that the connection became viable.</p><p>“This unorthodox drifting doesn’t suit you, Ezra.” With the privacy of their craft, Cee and Ezra were afforded the luxury of sharing a long, exasperated look.</p><p>Ezra couldn’t help but grin for it, something she returned.</p><p>They’d recover from this misstep and Ezra would never again reach deep into the well of his contacts. He knew now that many if not <em>most</em> of his older connections were best left to the graves in which they’d been interred by conflict, time.</p><p>Yes.</p><p>They’d do just fine on jobs like Ukiuq and ones that resembled Saharn but were not <em>actually</em> Saharn.</p><p>“Though I appreciate the concern, this <em>unorthodox drifting</em>, as you say, is working for us.“</p><p>A minimal pause.</p><p>Cee shifted into a cross-legged position, leaned back to rest against the panel.</p><p>“For now. Maybe.” Ori said, his voice falling into something admonishing, as though they weren’t wizened enough to understand the unsustainability of their plan.</p><p>Cee looked up at him, rolled her eyes, huffed.</p><p>“I can’t believe you were partners with this person.” She bit low; her voice was thick with judgment.</p><p>He didn’t blame her. He, too, would have questioned his past self, his judgements. <em>Kevva</em>, he questioned it <em>now.</em></p><p>Still, he shushed her</p><p>“Now, you get to the point or I close the channel. Our launch window is coming up.”</p><p>“Ok. Look, I <em>do </em>got a proposition for you.”</p><p>A longer pause. Cee looked at him, incredulous.</p><p>“Goodbye, Ori.” Ezra sighed</p><p>“Listen, I know things went sour, and I’m mighty regretful. I didn’t mean to upset you or your girl –“</p><p>“Really?” Cee huffed and Ezra agreed with the sentiment; <em>that</em> was immensely hard to believe. It sounded about as sincere as Ezra saying he regretted nearly choking him to death.</p><p>“ – given the opportunity, I’d like to apol – “</p><p>“Best get to it.” He cut the man off; he was in no mood for a repeat of their initial meeting. He was fully aware that <em>this</em> time, over the comm, he wouldn’t have the opportunity to bodily choke his very words off.</p><p>Closing the comm would be immensely unsatisfying at this point.</p><p>“The nobleman, he’s got a job for you.”</p><p>Cee’s almost playful countenance slipped; her expression fell into something serious as her attention snapped towards the comm.</p><p>Ezra, too, stared. It was as though the man was there, in front of them. Ezra’s brow knit in anticipation; there was <em>nothing</em> he trusted about this.</p><p>“Now, I know, despite the business with the arm – and I <em>am </em>sorry about that – that you’re the best there is when it comes to digging up heat without smokin’ it –“</p><p>Aurelac. He was talking about <em>Aurelac</em>. The slang, the ridiculous verbiage threw him so far back in time he felt as though he were liable to get whiplash from the force of it. Dozens of unwanted memories floated into frame, demanded his ponderance, a fondness he was now meanly lacking.</p><p>“No.”</p><p>Absolutely <em>no.</em></p><p>“Ez, it’s a partial upfront gig. Half now, half later.”</p><p>It was appealing, <em>would have</em> been appealing had he mentioned such an opportunity in the first place, had Ori <em>not</em> needed to posture so terribly.</p><p>Still, he knew that it was he who had failed to keep the peace. He could have shrugged away the nuisance that was the other man’s vulgarities and kept a decent peace.</p><p>His failure to do so <em>still</em> irritated him.</p><p>“Like I said, no.”</p><p>“Like <em>you</em> said, new regulations, we’ll make it worth the effort. The going rate has increased tenfold, a good pearl can buy a ship.”</p><p>It was almost worth it to tell the man that the last time he’d tried he’d failed, miserably, multiple times. <em>Almost</em> - he would rather die than offer that information.</p><p>“What is he – is he talking about Aurelac?” Cee asked, looked at him; she clambered onto her knees, drew herself close to the speaker as though it would allow her to divine something more.</p><p>“Yes.” He said, simply.</p><p>Before he could stop her, Cee’s finger was on the relay button. She was still folded in an odd position; her flexibility was something of which to be envious.</p><p>“How much?” She said, rushing her speech as though fearful of losing the opportunity.</p><p>“Cee – “</p><p>“Is that your partner?” Ori asked and Ezra felt that heat of anger again. If the man thought he could salvage the putrid implications he had made with the sly injection of the title, he was mistaken.</p><p>“Finally, someone with sense!“ He continued his attempts to endear.</p><p>Ezra looked at Cee, expression stern. He was relieved to find it wasn’t working. She looked no more enchanted than she had before.</p><p>“ … and I do apologize for the comments I made.” Ori added quickly.</p><p>“We are not bargaining. We’re done here.” He reached over to end the transmission when Cee scrambled into a standing position, hungry for leverage over the conversation.</p><p>“Hey – “ He managed only that as Cee got in front of him – she was too athletic for her own good - and pushed his hand away from the comm panel. Facing him, she leaned against the panel, hand hovering protective over the comm controls.</p><p>She shushed him.</p><p>“Let’s hear him out.”</p><p>“Birdie –“ He said low, warning, reaching again for the comm, ready to put an end to this. He shouldn’t have been surprised when she slapped his hand, but nothing about it <em>was</em> surprising.</p><p>As though sensing their quiet disagreement, Ori continued.</p><p>“Your partner wants to hear the rest of the deal. And, didn’t you always tell me about how important it was to hear out a deal before laying it to pasture?”</p><p>“What’s your offer?” Cee looked terribly satisfied with herself as she pressed the button, spoke. He imagined she was trying to make up – unreasonably so – for her missed chance to negotiate in Saharn.</p><p>He looked at her, shook his head. </p><p>He was about to tell her that <em>no</em>, whatever this man was about to offer it was not worth the insult, the headache, that he had been <em>wrong</em> to contact him at all and that he was deeply <em>sorry -</em></p><p>“Fifty-pee upfront, fifty when its done.”</p><p>The silence that stretched after was immensely long, <em>loud.</em></p><p>Ezra was <em>certain</em> he hadn’t heard that right. Not after that dance Ori had forced them through. Not after he’d made such a popint to devalue their work, their abilities.</p><p>It was too <em>dissonant </em>with their recently lived reality.</p><p>“One-hundred Points …” Cee said; her voice was absolutely <em>thick</em> with awe.</p><p> It was unlikely <em>either</em> of them had ever come so close to making personal acquaintance with such an amount.</p><p>It was the kind of income that guaranteed an end to drifting, that promised ample food and comfort. The kind that physically averted your gaze – hands kind, soft – from the rancid slop of the gutters to the white glow of the stars.</p><p>It promised days of leisure rather than back-breaking labor. It offered peace of mind over the slow drip of chronic worry. It offered Cee all the worlds he could count.</p><p>That is what the <em>Points</em> offered.</p><p>The Green however.</p><p>That miserable, green thing out there in the Black.</p><p>As easily as the Points could <em>give</em>, the Green could <em>take.</em> They’d <em>both</em> seen it, had lived it.</p><p>
  <em>This.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>That.</em>
</p><p>Always, it seemed, a veritable struggle between this and that. Ezra’s shoulder ached, the right one; he was so immensely <em>tired.</em></p><p>“I’ll take it by your stunned silence that you’re considering the offer – “ The comm cracked, obtrusive, the man’s deep voice an intrusion.</p><p>“ – when you’re ready to sign and seal, meet me at the old place –“</p><p>Ezra had heard enough. Before they could hear the rest, Ezra took advantage of Cee’s shock and reached forward to close the transmission.</p><p>“No.” He said, unable to form much more than that for the moment. His mind was alight with every single possibility that now laid before them. That he wanted to both accept and refuse.</p><p>As Cee came to life, her words flying sharply, quickly, he thought of a classical poet, about a piece about two paths diverging; in that moment he felt no love for its lyricism.</p>
<hr/><p>Cee was not satisfied.</p><p>Ezra, she knew, was making a mistake.</p><p>If he <em>really</em> thought the failure to negotiate before was his fault, wouldn’t this be an agreeable redemption?</p><p>“Ezra!” She said his name in a way she never had. The confidence of it, the clarity of the annunciation of it had him turning to look at her. It was as though she had been able to physically grab him for all its intention and timbre.</p><p>“<em>One-hundred</em> points in total!” Ezra nodded and Cee found it lacking in recognition of how immense, how incredible the offer was.</p><p>Couldn’t he understand the risk was worth the reward? She knew he was worried about <em>her</em>, about what going back would mean, but she didn’t care; not if <em>this</em> was to be the end result.</p><p>And, she knew the Green, now. It wasn’t like <em>before</em>, when she’d only known it for what her father had said – nothing much at all – and when it was facilitated by a man who saw her as something more approximate to <em>luggage</em> than a partner.</p><p>Now she was <em>partnered</em> with someone she <em>trusted.</em></p><p>They’d be better prepared. They’d have time without guns at their back. They’d have the benefit of a new form of privacy: the Centralian abandonment of the BG-Line.</p><p>“Just think, we’d never need to work another gig!” She was near hysterical from the idea of it. Gigs, short-winded jobs, dead-end slogs – they had been her entire life. She’d never been promised such a rapid and imminent termination of the hard, grueling monotony of it all.</p><p>“Whatever happened to <em>we’ll be fine</em>?” He asked her; certainly, he saw it a rather abrupt shift from her former opinion on the matter.</p><p>Cee huffed, rolled her eyes. They <em>would</em> be ok, if they decided to forgo the offer, but – <em>but!</em></p><p>“We <em>would</em> be fine. But we can’t just say <em>no</em>, right?”</p><p>“It’s not worth the risk, birdie.” Ezra turned from her, sighed as he began to terminate the launch process; they’d missed their assigned window and would have to wait.</p><p>Cee saw it as a run of excellent luck.</p><p>“How do you know?” She snorted because, from her point of view, every job came bountiful with risk.</p><p>Try as he might have, he couldn’t have predicted the incident on Saharn.</p><p>Equally, he couldn’t have predicted the fortune on Ukiuq.</p><p>They could only do their best to prepare.</p><p>He’d proven an excellent partner, an excellent companion, and she was confident that they would not experience a repeat of their last foray into the Green.</p><p>They knew each other, had grown in <em>trust</em>. There would not be the divisive wedge that had split her and her father, or that which created tension between her and Ezra at the start of their knowing.</p><p>They already <em>knew</em> where to go. They would make easy work of it. There was enough in the Queen’s Lair to make the job a simple in and out.</p><p>They had their own <em>craft</em>, one that had made it on and off the Green before. They wouldn’t be pressed for <em>time.</em></p><p>“I don’t <em>know</em> what will transpire, but I do know that when points of that magnitude are put on the table … and <em>casually, </em>I might add … it isn’t a simple thing - ”</p><p>Ezra paused and Cee huffed. She waited for him to finish knowing there was more.</p><p>“ – and Ori, I know it needs no repeating, but I was wrong –“</p><p>He looked as though he were going to mention their physical altercation, his fist bunching. Instead he shook his head.</p><p>“ - and I had no inclination that he’d aligned himself with nobility, and <em>that</em> birdie, you avoid.”</p><p>Cee knew better than to bring up the fact that half the contracts that she and her father had ever taken were, according to him, were paid for by nobility. <em>Some cousin of a nobleman</em>, <em>or something, what a prick,</em> her father had said more than once, or, <em>some asshole of nobility, Cee, easy money, they always deliver</em>.</p><p>Granted.</p><p>They’d never been offered an amount close to what Ori’s nobleman was offering.</p><p>“Still,” she said, crossing her arms, “we should at least hear them out.”</p><p>“No, we shouldn’t.” She watched as Ezra flicked the final switch more aggressively than necessary.</p><p>She could feel the decent mood that had developed in the fallout of that terrible meeting <em>dissolving.</em></p><p>The entire experience had put a severe line of tension in him, mitigated, briefly, by their collective decision to <em>move on</em>.</p><p>Now, though, the irritation had returned. His mouth was pressed into a grim line and his brown was pinched in a way that suggested a headache was coming on.</p><p>With the launch cancelled, Ezra stood, forged towards one of the panels near the hatch. Cee followed, though, in such a small space, it wasn’t so much a pursuit as just sharing space.</p><p>“I – I’m not afraid of them.” She <em>wasn’t</em>. She felt many things for the pair: loathing, disgust … but fear. No, not fear.</p><p>“Didn’t think you were.” Ezra huffed.</p><p>She believed him, even though it would have been easier if that had been the issue. She was certain she could have convinced him to acquiesce if her fear was all that kept him from agreeing.</p><p>“I <em>want</em> to see this through.” Cee interjected, reaching to press a button she knew to be part of the chain he was performing. He was initiating a cold-start, necessary after aborting the launch in such a belated fashion. She could hear the <em>tick tick tick clunk</em> of the cooling boosters.</p><p>“I thought we were through with this.” He sounded <em>annoyed</em>.</p><p>“Well, it’s all changed, now. Let me make the call on this one”</p><p>“Not on this one, Cee.” Ezra said it as though he were promising the <em>next</em> one. She didn’t <em>want</em> the next one.</p><p>She wasn’t afraid of Ori nor the nobleman, and if she wasn’t afraid, what was left? There was nothing to hold her back, nothing that would impede her.</p><p>And.</p><p>Didn’t he get it? He wouldn’t have to worry about her, himself. They could do <em>anything.</em></p><p>Ezra pulled at a tricky wire, a manual trick they’d had to invent on the fly. The reach, the movement was awkward.</p><p>And.</p><p>He could get a prosthetic for Kevva’s sake! So many of the things they worried about, that she knew <em>he</em>worried about, would be solved over a single job.</p><p>“I’m ready to go back, to the Green.” Ezra paused at that, looked at her with an expression that she found hard to read. She felt her jaw twitch over the unexpected scrutiny.</p><p>And she - she could stow her fears, her concerns, the <em>nightmares</em>, if it meant they ended after this. Why couldn’t he?</p><p>The idea of returning to the Green no longer worried her; in this moment, it <em>thrilled</em> her.</p><p>“We’re not going back to the <em>Green.</em>” There was nothing amused in his tone.</p><p>She was pushing him, she knew.</p><p>“Why not? We’re partners and I get to make half the decisions.” Ezra glanced at her as he, with more force than necessary, shut the panel door.</p><p>“No, this is different.” It was hard to keep up with him as he bodily avoided the conversation; a small blaring warning sounded and he cursed, shuffled towards the coolant coils.</p><p>Their manual fix-it had just blown one out.</p><p>“No, it’s not. How’s it different? Tell me?” Cee hoped he had a good answer.</p><p>“These kinds of things, they aren’t backwater jobs that pay but a scratch –“</p><p><em>Obviously</em>, she thought as she interrupted him.</p><p>“And that’s not a good thing?”</p><p>“It’s never a good thing. Never when the pockets of the employer are that deep. Your worth is null and void to them.” Ezra made a lazy jab at a fuse wedge behind a coil and was rewarded with the painful <em>snap</em> of a piece of equipment too indelicately handled.</p><p>He swore again.</p><p>She shook her head as she edged into his space, pulled at the fuse; their worth was null and void to <em>everyone.</em>The fuse came lose in her hand and she pulled back.</p><p>“Doesn’t that just mean they don’t care what we do?” It sounded beneficial to her.</p><p>“They do care what you do; they just don’t care if you die doing it.” He looked at her as he regained the space, reached in behind the coil; she wouldn’t be able to reach that far, so she merely watched.</p><p>He grimaced as he felt for a pesky button.</p><p>He managed, clearly, because the other coils began to buzz again. It was temporary; they’d need to dig out another fuse. So, Ezra turned towards the control panel again, intent on dealing with it now.</p><p>Cee, having done the majority of their inventory, knew it was actually stored in a container in the galley.</p><p>She wasn’t going to say anything about that just yet.</p><p>“But we can do it, we both know how, we’ve both been there, have seen it and - and I’ve been practicing.”</p><p>He whipped around to look at her, halting his steps.</p><p>Ezra, in that moment, looked absolutely weary. His expression fell and, despite it, he didn’t look as surprised as he should have. He took in a breath and huffed, head tilting in exasperation.</p><p>“What? When?” He was looking down at her so thoroughly unimpressed. She couldn’t help the small lift of her lips, a cat-grin; she wasn’t really amused, rather, she was pleased that he really hadn’t known.</p><p>“I just have.” <em>When you were sleeping</em>, she thought. She had practiced holding the tools. Had practiced making small cuts in fruits and pieces of errant paper.</p><p>They stood in what Cee felt was a stalemate. He was on the cusp of agreeing, even as the silence stretched, she could feel it -</p><p>“We’re not doing it birdie, that’s it.” Unable to spy the repair kit and clearly exhausted by it all, he abandoned the task, diverted for the galley and reached for a glass of water. He filled one, handed it to her.</p><p>It felt a lot like he was trying to coerce her into compliance. With <em>water.</em></p><p>“We need to make another request for launch.” He lamented.</p><p>She took the proffered glass – <em>Central Medical Center</em> - but immediately placed it on the table.</p><p>She wasn’t <em>done</em>.</p><p>“You’re just scared.” She tried, jutting her chin up.</p><p>“That’s fine.” Her mouth quirked at her failure to antagonize; she knew she was wrong about that. He wasn’t <em>scared</em>; it wasn’t the right word. She had to remind herself, sometimes, that Ezra was far beyond the childish baiting her father had been so prone to.</p><p>Though, perhaps he <em>was</em> and it just required the right trigger.</p><p>That display in Ori’s reception hall had proved so.</p><p><br/>
She was still <em>roiling</em> with fury over it.</p><p>“C’mon –“ She said, even as Ezra rolled his eyes, something he rarely did, over a sip of water and shook his head; he poured the rest out. He was restless.</p><p>“I’ll make the launch request. Can you find the fuse for the coil –“ Ezra was already moving, again, and she felt her heart flutter with anger. He was avoiding her … avoiding the offer, avoiding his old contact.</p><p>It made her <em>mad.</em></p><p>“What? No, this is not fair.” She got in front of him, a physical protest.</p><p>“It’s not about being fair, Cee, it’s about being smart.” He stopped, didn’t make a move to get around her bodily barrier.</p><p>“I’m smart, and this is smart. You’re the one who said we needed more <em>ample and lucrative opportunities if we were to lengthen our stride –“</em></p><p>She said it unkindly, imitating his accent again.</p><p>This time it wasn’t an endearing thing. She was mocking him. Judging by the way he looked at her - unamused, lines on his face strict lines, head tilted down - she could tell her intention had been well-read, understood.</p><p>“You’re not hearing me, girl.” He drew the words out, long and low. This was the most tension she’d felt between them since Central. It lay heavy across them, felt akin to the weight that had settled when he’d told her she should go, should <em>leave.</em></p><p>“It won’t be like last time.” Cee implored and watched, a thick emotion waxing as Ezra shook his head, rubbed his hand across his face.</p><p><em>Last time</em> had been a series of incredible misfortunes.</p><p>This time she would not shoot him.</p><p>This time there would be no mercenaries to worry about, to be <em>stabbed </em>by.</p><p>This time they would be working, fully, together, in good health and emboldened by their trust of each other.</p><p>This time she would be <em>useful</em>; she wouldn’t be a thing trailing behind like a shadow, unskilled, thrower raised with false confidence.</p><p>This time she wouldn’t be so <em>afraid.</em></p><p>“That’s not what I’m concerned about – “He muttered as he continued to rub at the bridge of his nose.</p><p>Her throat ached with the frustration that was building, that <em>had </em>been building. She had grown, was more than a child with the bare minimum of skills meant only for the minutiae of physical labors.</p><p>“You make decisions all the time. Why can’t I make this one? Don’t you trust me?” She was nearly yelling now, or as close as she got to it. For now she was complaining, <em>loudly.</em></p><p>“Of course I do, birdie, but it’s not about that.”</p><p>She shook her head emphatically, gave a sneer of incomprehension. If it wasn’t an issue of trust – and that, <em>that</em> would have hurt, but it would have made <em>sense</em> – then what was it?</p><p>“Then what? Why can’t I take the lead on this one?” Her voice warbled with disbelief, confusion, frustration.</p><p>“Why can’t we do this?” Her voice cracked at the tail end in frustration. She watched him open his mouth, her mouth quirking into a grin, <em>waiting</em>, because this better be compelling -</p><p>“Because you’re fifteen, Cee!” He said, hand flying from his hip in a movement of exasperation, <em>finally</em> saying something of meaning.</p><p>Cee felt like she had been slapped; he might as well have done.</p><p>The following silence stung just as badly as a physical strike would have.</p><p>“Now – “ She knew Ezra regretted the words the moment they had left his lips. She could hear it as he tried to start again, could see it as he briefly closed his eyes and took a large inhale.</p><p>No matter what came next, she knew he couldn’t retract them, the words; they’d already filled the space, had clung to the walls, their clothing. </p><p>“That – I was out of line.” He was regretful, the immediacy testament to it: how likely it was that he hadn’t meant it.</p><p>Through the fog it had laid over her, she tried to see that, to recognize that, but all she could hear was <em>him.</em></p><p>It was too hard, in the moment, to recognize his pained regret. To pick the worry, the emotional nuance, from the initial eruption, from the words that had struck so forcefully. To see his frame was lined with worry and fatigue.</p><p>She stared at Ezra, speechless.</p><p>He looked <em>miserable. </em></p><p>She couldn’t seem to find it within herself to care because she could only heart <em>him.</em></p><p>Cee felt her breath quickening over the betrayal. She was … beside herself.</p><p>She …</p><p>“Cee –“ Ezra said, voice having gone soft.</p><p>She thought of the meanest thing she could muster. What she, in that moment, felt to be truth.</p><p>“You sound just like him.”</p><p><em>Damon</em>, she thought. <em>Just like him.</em></p><p>She said it, each word emphasized and filled with hurt and spite and anger and –</p><p>Cee turned away.</p>
<hr/><p>Ezra was miserable.</p><p>He’d brought this on himself, he understood. He wasn’t sure he could have chosen wording more inadequate, more troubling than that which had actually left his mouth.</p><p>
  <em>Because you’re fifteen.</em>
</p><p>Kevva, of all things, why that?</p><p>It had been a small piece of a rather frustrated and complicated thought process.</p><p>He had felt his own frustration, then. He was angry at himself, yes, but he was also frustrated with her inability to <em>listen.</em> She had pushed when he’d already been wearied by his own massive oversight; in his clamor for something <em>better</em> he had walked them right into a veritable predator’s den.</p><p>She had pushed even though they’d already traded words on the matter, even though he had been so persistent. She had not <em>heard</em> him.</p><p>He knew that wasn’t fair, but it felt that way. She was a stubborn thing and when she’d set her mind to a task, it was hard work pulling her away from it.</p><p>Cee missed it sometimes, his meaning, his intention. Her mind always strayed towards old traumas – expected and <em>reasonable</em> – but, at the height of their grievances, he wondered when he’d be granted <em>some</em> leniency.</p><p>Ezra wanted, more than anything, her trust.</p><p>Sometimes a voice would remind him of a reality: <em>you bastard, </em>it would shout,<em> you killed her <strong>father</strong>, </em>followed by<em>, trust, you want her <strong>trust</strong>?</em></p><p>Even so, somehow, unbelievably, he <em>knew</em> he had it, but sometimes it felt like hard work to claim it. Like he was earning and losing it by the measure of cycles.</p><p>He knew it was the impatient man in him that wanted easy resolution, but <em>Kevva</em>, her timing had been <em>lousy.</em></p><p>His mind had been working in overdrive at the time of their confrontation. He’d been in poor form for it, still stewing in the indignity of such a thorough failing, still hungry with the need to physically maim Orith Fant until he was but a red spot on the Port’s greased floors.</p><p>He had still been reeling, to some extent, from a bad decision made, a loss of self-control.</p><p>He’d been thinking about Ori, the man he had been and the man he was now. How he’d implied, between the lines of perverse speech, that Cee was a kept thing, the kind they’d seen shipped in – willingly or otherwise - from the Black to keep miners company.</p><p>He’d been thinking about the nobleman’s gaze upon her form. How the man had ignored him for favor of her. How he looked as though, given the opportunity, he would dissect her.</p><p>He’d been thinking about how Cee hadn’t been able to perceive the danger he’d inadvertently exposed them to; how she’d been so angry, desiring to argue with them, to go back so that she could.</p><p>He’d been thinking about how she had so eagerly welcome <em>that</em> back into the fold, how she had replied to the transmission without a single hint of <em>fear.</em></p><p>He’d been thinking about what it would mean to bring Cee back to the Green, just as her <em>father</em> had – <em>this is something I have never seen in all my time on the Green: a little girl.</em></p><p>Which had led him to thinking about how she <em>was</em> a child, and that he continuously, reliably forgot until it was too late.</p><p>She had accused him of being afraid, and she had been wrong.</p><p>Wrong in how she had <em>meant</em> it.</p><p>He was not afraid of the Green.</p><p>He was not afraid of being made a fool, disgraced with an audience.</p><p>He was not afraid of the nobleman or Orith Fant – the bastard – and he was not afraid for his own life should the deal, any deal, go sour.</p><p>Those things, they were old hat by now.</p><p>He was, as always, afraid for <em>her.</em></p><p>Each moment that had passed in the space of conflict between him and Orith – a once easily navigable, boring thing – felt threatening to <em>her.</em></p><p>With great misfortune, his thoughts had been on her age, her diminishing childhood, as he spoke. If he could have physically reeled them in, he would have.</p><p>He hadn’t the space of discourse to make such an interjection; hadn’t the time to connect it to deeper thought, deeper explanation. He hadn’t the opportunity to say what he’d meant, <em>that, despite your skills, your capacity, your ferocity, your intelligence .. you are fifteen and two times in the Green is two too many.</em></p><p>The way it had established itself in the thick silence between them had been toxic; what she had heard, instead, was: <em>you are fifteen and thus not worthy of my audience, my attention, my consult, my time.</em></p><p>Her reaction had been an appropriate one, despite his own hurts.</p><p>It was unlikely he’d forget the hurt glisten in her eyes, the disgusted upturn of her lips, the falling of her features. He had no doubt – <em>none</em> – that he had sounded exactly like Damon.</p><p>She believed that he had intentionally – though with regret – demeaned her for her age, had severed their line of trust for a number.</p><p>It was a terrible thing to believe, and he knew that the belief was sitting heavy within her, rotting away all it touched.</p><p>What she had said, <em>you sound just like him</em>, had <em>hurt.</em> But, it was the kind of hurt that he knew he deserved; the same that one received when they did something spectacularly stupid. Like mining without a neutralizing agent and being surprised when something blew up in your face.</p><p><em>That</em> kind of stupid.</p><p><em>That </em>kind of deserved.</p><p>It didn’t matter that it wasn’t what he meant, for it wasn’t what was perceived. He’d failed to be careful with his words, with language, and he had gotten wounded for the lack of care.</p><p>Still, flowing words and analyses aside, it would be a thing he remembered for a long time; just like the shine of her eyes, the way she had appeared grief-struck, then angry.</p><p>His hands hovered over the controls.</p><p>Then.</p><p>For the second time that cycle, Ezra aborted the launch. The rockhopper groaned; he could make out the flashing yellow of the warning light on the external panels, and the loud wail of the emergency buzzer in the launch Port’s hatch door, currently closed to them.</p><p>He sighed.</p><p>He was absolutely going to destroy this craft through pure mishandling.</p><p>Shoving the concerned whirl of thoughts regarding the imminent need to perform yet <em>another</em> cold-start to the back of his mind, he rose from his chair and made his way to the sleeping quarters.</p>
<hr/><p>Cee sat cross-legged and angry in her cot as she tried to focus on the pages of her notebook.</p><p>The rockjumper ceased its rumblings and went cold.</p><p>She blinked, looked up, brow furrowing in confusion.</p><p>
  <em>Tick tick tick clunk.</em>
</p><p><em>Buzz</em>, the warning bell of a failed launch.</p><p>She sighed, rolled her eyes. They’d probably burnt out the gel or had blown another fuse; Cee hadn’t replaced the other one as Ezra had requested. <em>Oh well,</em> she thought as she planted her chin on the palm of her hand, <em>he’ll figure it out.</em></p><p>She resumed surveying the sentences she’d put to paper.</p><p>
  <em>Clo wanted to ring his neck when she heard the news –</em>
</p><p><em>Ok</em>, she thought, before scratching the sentence out, <em>maybe I’m projecting a little</em>.</p><p>And she was.</p><p>In Cee’s rendition of the space between the first and second books, Clo hadn’t, at this point in canon, been sufficiently bothered by Fruda. At least, not enough to want to ring his neck. That came <em>later</em>, in the second book, chapter six.</p><p><em>Fuck canon,</em> she thought as she wrote the sentence back in, changing it ever so <em>slightly.</em></p><p>
  <em>Clo was going to ring his neck –</em>
</p><p>“Cee – “</p><p>She startled, violently, so engrossed was she in her writing. She looked up and frowned at Ezra before even meeting his gaze.</p><p>“Don’t <em>do </em>that!” She groused, slapping her notebook closed as he hovered in the doorway; she could feel her former feelings of anger and unhappiness with him returning.</p><p>They <em>had</em> been waning – the feelings – with time and the physical space between them. She’d left him to reinitiate the launch request and had secluded herself in their shared quarters, intent on losing herself in writing.</p><p>By her reckoning, it had been at least two-Post-hours since their argument and, in the fallout, her feelings regarding the matter had transformed.</p><p>Her anger had dissipated some, her understanding that neither of them had meant what they had said growing. Even if the words had been sharp and had, perhaps by <em>some</em> intention, been meant for the jugular<em>,</em>she knew – <em>felt</em> – they were beyond such things.</p><p>Their bond, their trust, was stronger than that.</p><p>She felt no confusion over that; she <em>knew</em> it.</p><p>They’d been through too much for it to be anything but true, even if it still <em>hurt.</em> She figured she was allowed to wallow, to be injured for it, to let it live on until she’d dealt with it. <em>You feel it until you don’t</em>, Ezra had told her sideral months ago, before they’d even left Central.</p><p>She was taking his advice to heart and he’d have to deal with her and any related moods, she decided, until she’d resolved the feelings within her.</p><p>His reappearance solidified her belief that they’d grown beyond easily hurt egos while simultaneously reigniting her annoyance of him.</p><p>“Sorry, birdie. I don’t usually get the drop on you.” He said, filling the air, hoping – no doubt – to fill the gap between them.</p><p>“Did you burn the gel out?” She asked, her voice taking on a small apathy. The craft was a lost cause; she’d stopped feeling any <em>real</em> concern over its chronic needs some sideral weeks ago.</p><p>“I did not. But thank you for your confidence concerning my piloting.”</p><p>“Oh. Okay?” She said, asked. Crafts didn’t just <em>abort</em> launch like that, not without mechanical failure. She wondered if Tower had cancelled, wondered if they’d stretched their patience with their pervious launch failure.</p><p>“I aborted the launch.” He didn’t smile as he said it and she knew immediately it wasn’t an appeasement. It wasn’t a thing he’d done to humor her.</p><p>She stared at him, hands curling over the edge of her notebook.</p><p>Before she could ask about it, he spoke.</p><p>"What I said, Cee. It was wrong, and I didn’t mean it. I spoke out of turn. I know that is neither an excuse nor useful to you - ” Cee quirked her mouth. She understood because she hadn’t meant what she had said either.</p><p>Well, she <em>did.</em> He <em>had</em> sounded like her father.</p><p><em>You’re ten now, Cee, stop crying,</em> and, <em>you just turned thirteen, Cee, I’d think you would have known that by now, I sure did</em>, or,<em> Cee, you haven’t acted like that since you were two, get a grip.</em></p><p>So, not <em>exactly</em>, like her father. Same thing said with meanings built from different sides of the same spectrum, she supposed.</p><p>Still.</p><p>She hadn’t meant it the way it had sounded either. She hadn’t meant for it to have cut as deep as it probably had. Hadn’t been meaning to, through the emphasis of it, the emotion she’d impregnated it with, to say, <em>you <strong>are</strong> Damon.</em></p><p>She knew <em>that</em> is how it had sounded.</p><p>“I’m sorry.” He didn’t offer any further explanation, and she hadn’t assumed he would. He never drew out his explanations for his behaviors; it was as though he refused to allow himself the benefit of any information that would absolve him, make him more forgivable.</p><p>It was the second time that cycle that he was accepting fault.</p><p>It was a quality she admired. More than once she’d found herself rambling, grasping for the right words of explanation and apology.</p><p>“Thanks.” She said as she pursed her lips, still annoyed but meaning it. She’d learned <em>that</em>, too; that she could feel gratitude for sincere things.</p><p>“I’m sorry, too. I was just … angry.” She said even as she still <em>felt </em>it. Ezra nodded, accepting it, accepting that the sliver of ice in her tone suggested she still was.</p><p>“I know.” Ezra leaned against the frame of the entrance, breathed deep as his gaze flit from floor to her.</p><p>“You sure about this, little bird?” Ezra asked.</p><p>It was an odd thing: to be asked whether she was certain over a thing for which <em>he</em> had initially claimed certitude.</p><p>She knew he had history with the man, Orith, and that the nobleman had been a surprise. She knew he didn’t trust nobility, not for employ, despite her own – her father’s – reasonably tame experiences with them. She knew he was <em>worried</em> about her <em>all the time</em> and that his judgement was likely – or, so she thought – clouded.</p><p>She worried about that - how worried <em>he</em> was all the damn time.</p><p>She’d yet to express it but she saw it in the ways it caused small lines of stress to form at the corners of his eyes. The way he checked their points, daily, for errant piracy. The way he watched her, sometimes, as though fretting over some perceived failure to have provided.</p><p>If they could do this, if they could pull it off, he wouldn’t<em> have</em> to worry; there’d be nothing to worry <em>about</em>.</p><p>She paused, stilled a nervous tic, and thought.</p><p>“I think we should hear them out.” Cee felt a rush of adrenaline as she said it; it felt <em>right.</em></p><p>“We can always say no.” Cee said with a lilt, half a statement and half a question. They hadn’t made any move to come after them, hadn’t pursued them, confronted them at their hatch door. She knew, logically, that ‘<em>no’</em>was a privilege in the Black. But, despite the ire that had passed between Orith and Ezra, the other man had made no <em>real</em> move to threaten, to hurt them.</p><p>No. That had been <em>Ezra.</em></p><p>Surely, their autonomy was intact.</p><p>Ezra nodded, still looking as though, perhaps, he knew better. That by agreeing to hold congress, they were agreeing to the employ.</p><p>“Ok, birdie. We’ll hear them out –“ She wondered, for a moment, how serious this was; she was sat here convincing <em>Ezra</em>, the man who had arranged the meeting, to go through with it.</p><p>“ – but, at first hint the deal is a raw one, we extricate ourselves, move on.”</p><p>That she could abide, easily.</p><p>Ezra still looked unhappy over the whole affair, but she could see some of the tension falling away. Cee assumed it was for having made a decision.</p><p>She couldn’t know it, but it had little to do with their decision to move forward. Rather, any tension dissipated was for their reconciling.</p><p>“Deal.” Cee said, her mind rushing over the concept of unending points, over Ezra’s quelled worries.</p>
<hr/><p>Orith Fant and the nobleman were exactly where he’d thought they would be: sat in a corner booth of the dingy dump that was <em>Port of Call. </em>It was a seedy, unrepentant tavern that attracted mostly miners. Those who wanted to <em>be</em> miners, and those that employed miners.</p><p>And not just Aurelac, but anything that could be ripped from the soil, sky, or sea, of any planet: Aurelac, Opalia, Erline, Rython Gas even, though they were far an few between, considering it was a death sentence to spend any decent time trying to extract it from the atmosphere of Ryth’a.</p><p>He’d tried once – him, his brother, <em>Ori</em> – and had packed up the cycle after his first attempt; he knew a bad deal when he saw one, at least as far as <em>deadly</em> ones when.</p><p>Ezra blinked at the memories, mostly unpleasant; he’d spent many cycles plastered to these booths, ill or unconscious with drink.  </p><p>He knew this was all intentional, that Orith was trying to make him remember, to make him feel a touch <em>nostalgic</em>, to, as he used to put it, <em>speak to that insufferable little poet inside you.</em></p><p>Ezra nodded at the two men as they approached, his expression hardened and unamused.</p><p>He wouldn’t spare any pleasantries or fine words on them.</p><p>“Before you start jawing, we are here to talk business, about that ridiculous offer your associate has made.”</p><p>“Straight to it, huh, Ez? But first, darling, I do want to – “ <em>No</em>, Ezra thought.</p><p>He wasn’t going to let this man offer his saccharine apology. Fant leaned forward, brows lifting into a thing that was meant to be endearing. His voice dropped in the way it had, back then, when he was trying to seduce some stray woman.</p><p>Ezra clenched his fist, landed it heavily against the table – the drinks that had been there, all Ori’s, trembled – and he pointed, for the second time in a full port-cycle, into the man’s face.</p><p>Ezra felt a personal frustration; he was finding it easy – too easy – to fall into the language of brutish men. It was one he spoke fluently, though less and less frequently these cycles. Orith had brought his anger to the surface level; it wasn’t unfamiliar, the pop and sizzle of easy aggression, but it was unwanted.</p><p>“Enough. We’ve wasted enough time here and if you’ve got bonafide work, or something to discuss, best get to it.”</p><p>“Alright, alright,” Ori looked at him, clearly aggravated with his complete unwillingness to play their game as he had the cycle before, “like I said, my associate, as you say, has a deal he wants to make with you. One I’m not sure you can say no to.”</p><p>Ori had drawn the <em>not</em> of the sentence out, had given him a tight smile as he’d said it.</p><p>“As appreciative as we are,” Ezra poured as much sarcasm into the statement as possible, “I need to know why the <em>nobleman</em> is so interested in facilitating our employ.”</p><p>It was unusual, <em>suspicious.</em></p><p>Ori had gone to some length to imply he was an invalid, useless to any workforce. He had made it clear that he’d thought Cee nothing more than a child, too young to understand the mechanics of a smooth job, too old to groom into good, meaningful labor.</p><p>Ori gave him a genuine smile as he glanced at Cee, his periphery taking her in, a lazy up and down. Cee, to her credit, didn’t look perturbed. She had clearly come <em>expecting</em> this.</p><p>“Well, that’s the thing, Ez.”Ori leaned back, grabbed at one of his glasses, swirled the amber mix. </p><p>For the first time since their arrival, Ezra wished he had holstered a thrower.</p><p>He knew, realistically, he wouldn't have been able to conceal it.</p><p>“You see, he does know your girl.”</p><p>“I don’t know you.” Cee said, her voice unwavering, unforgiving of the slight. He was <em>proud</em> of her; she didn’t look at all perturbed, afraid, despite the claim.</p><p>She glanced at Ori before shifting her gaze, blue eyes boring into the nobleman’s own. His green eyes were sharp, cutting; if he was bothered by her transgression of class lines, he didn’t show it.</p><p>“Like I said,” Ezra shook his head, tired of the game. He, too, looked at the nobleman, was unimpressed with what he found. Just another man, gowned in green and gold, eyes dead with the weight of his own haughty nature; a man who thought himself <em>something</em> in a universe of <em>nothing,</em> “that’s a doubtful thing, and now you’ve heard it yourself.”</p><p>“Yeah, I hear you. Both of you. I do –“ He took his drink in one, putrid gulp; Ezra could smell it despite the short distance. The drink had emboldened him, had made him turn this into <em>theatre.</em></p><p>He put the glass down, turned it, giving him a sarcastic smile before flitting his gaze over to Cee. He shook his head. A sympathetic thing. Cee didn’t move, didn’t change her expression from the stony thing she was now wearing.</p><p>“ - but, what I’m thinking is, your girl here – “ He continued to stare at Cee, licked his teeth, smacked his mouth and harumphed something humorous only to him.</p><p>“ - she was kept in the dark, as it were - ”</p><p>Ezra narrowed his eyes, mind trying to calculate all the possibilities, trying to <em>grasp</em> at the reveal before the man even made it. Any upper-hand he thought he might have had – which was, admittedly, very little - was slipping through his fingers.</p><p>Any leverage of intellect was growing <em>null.</em></p><p>“ – probably didn’t know a thing about it.”</p><p>The nobleman shifted, the first time he had bodily moved, and placed a holo-cube on the table; it was expensive technology, accessible only in Central and to those of his ilk.</p><p>Without any particular pomp, he pressed the button.</p><p>The thing lit up and projected its contents.</p><p>It had been a good and long time since Ezra had been shocked into genuine silence.</p><p>He had been silent when Cee had returned to him in the Green, though it had been more a thing of a serious lacking in oxygen and an overabundance of pain. It had been a near thing when Cee had returned to his bedside in Central, but that had been quickly smoothed by fast discussion, unpleasant trading of confused words.</p><p>Ezra was unlikely to ever feel this again and, in some strange latent way, detached from what was before him, he knew it.</p><p>Before them lay two images, positioned side by side as if to highlight a resemblance: one of Damon and one of Cee.</p><p>“Fal man hy’at. Ha’oh kan rrit isk Auroolac oo’tak.” Ezra felt sick as he stared at the images, only able to pull but one word from the man’s high dialect: Aurelac.</p><p>The nobleman - he knew.</p><p>The Queen’s Lair.</p><p>He <em>knew.</em></p><p>The man huffed as though it were funny, as though they were delighting in some shared joke.</p><p>“Sounds like your daddy’s got some debts to pay, girlie.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Cue Tiktok meme: “oh no, oh no, oh no no no no no no*</p><p>I promise you, there is at least *some* canon that makes this scenario possible. It will be explained in the narrative and the notes in the next chapter as I don’t want to spoil it.</p><p>If you’re interested, there’s still the <a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6kaiEcwjkdLIwxPXCHXJfn?si=t4KXAN1OS12z9Dd7oH-eXQ"> Spotify Playlist </a>; there’s a little banger of a stomp and holler on there called ‘Little Bird’. </p><p>Sorry for the delay ya’ll. My Tumblr people know but I had a hard patient death recently and just couldn’t write. I do terribly with pediatric death and I felt knocked off my saddle. I took some time off writing, too numb to really make anything happen. Just came back to it. I’m still struggling to produce anything creative, let alone anything good, but at some point you gotta try, right? I hope the quality hasn’t suffered; writing slumps are a weird thing. This chapter was about 50 pages or probably rambling. I'm so sorry.</p><p>Thanks for being patient. Thanks for sticking around, if you’re reading this.</p><p>Of course, thank you for your support. Each of you are appreciated, always.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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